


The Awkward Matter of Corvus and Millona Umbranox

by StopTalkingAtMe



Category: Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Genre: Alcoholism, Corvus/Millona is endgame, Depression, Infidelity, Marital Strife, Multi, Mutual Masturbation, Oral Sex, Post-Canon, References to miscarriages and pregnancy loss, Restoration magic used as a sex aid, Sharing a Bed, Threesome, Threesome - M/M/F, Yuleporn, Yuletide Treat, description of a murder scene, minor references to rape, oral sex with fingering, throat-cutting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 15:19:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16813273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StopTalkingAtMe/pseuds/StopTalkingAtMe
Summary: Technically heresy is not illegal, and nor is perversion. And murder is still murder. The law is very clear on the subject, and as Lex well knows, the Law is Sacred. So too is honour, or at least that used to be the case, but the rules by which he's always led his life are crumbling. After all, it's one thing to tup a married woman when her husband is all but presumed to be dead, but an entirely different matter after the unnerving bastard has come back.





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dizzy_fire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy_fire/gifts).



**One**

i

In the end the shrine hadn’t been hard to find. They could simply have followed the harsh cawing of the carrion birds. Crows and ravens, hundreds of them, had risen in a black cloud from the copse of trees at the approach of Count Umbranox and Lex’s men and now they massed in the branches of the tree on which the monstrosity hung.

Aside from the feasting birds, that flayed carcass had been the first thing Lex had seen. There had been an awful moment when he’d taken it for human, all exposed muscle and gleaming bone like an Ayleid flesh-working of old. That it had proved instead to be a stag came as something of a relief, although his thoughts squirmed in repulsed horror at the perversity of people who could so defile the body of a dead animal.

Not much consolation that they’d all been slaughtered too.

The woman had been strung up in a different tree, her body twisted around and lashed to the trunk so that in death she could gaze upon the the dead stag. She was naked, and it was hard to tell how much of the blood that had dried to flaking rust on her skin was her own. Lex couldn’t tell for certain until they got her down, but he suspected it wasn’t the hanging that had killed her.

The count stood before the tree line with his back to Lex. He seemed to be staring, not up at the murdered woman or at the thing that had once been a stag, but higher, at the ravens.

Lex stirred, uneasy in the unseasonable warmth. Umbranox always seemed to have that effect on him. His skin itched with fresh sweat beneath his chainmail armour and the padded surcoat. Even the breeze that whipped in off the Abecean Sea could not leaven the oppressive heat. Another storm would be closing in tonight, and likely a bad one judging by the lead-coloured thunderheads gathering on the horizon and the churning waves crashing against the rocks.

Two of the guards Lex had sent to look over the rest of the valley were returning, and by the looks of their waxy-pale faces what news they had wasn’t going to be good. Godrik, the sort of fat, lazy, corrupt guard that Lex despaired of, was sickened and shaken, and Guillam, who despite his Breton name had the harsh accent and wind-bitten complexion of a true-bred Colovian, looked like he’d already puked up his breakfast.

"There’s more of them down in the valley," Godrik said, wiping his red sweating face. "It’s a fucking massacre. Looks like all the dead are heretics–"

An expression crossed his face, a kind of involuntary flinching, but it was too late; his words were already out. They all to a man glanced at their count’s back.

Umbranox hadn’t looked around, but it was clear he had heard. He raised his voice to prevent it from being snatched away by the wind. His tone was pleasant enough, his words were anything but. "The next man to call these people ‘heretics’ will see out the rest of the week in a fucking jail cell."

Godrik grimaced, and slapped his fist against his chest. "Sorry, My Lord."

The count gave a dismissive twitch of his fingers, and then he went still again. Only when one of the crows hopped tentatively along a branch closer to the murdered woman did he react.

"Godsdamn," he hissed through gritted teeth, and swung around, drawing his sword so rapidly several of the men flinched. The sword was Daedric, the hilt glimmering wetly as if already stained with the blood of his enemies, and Lex was struck by the realisation of how _wrong_ this man was. Umbranox held the blade like a man used to handling a weapon. Not in the flashy, ceremonial manner common to most nobles who had never actually needed to fight for their lives, but plainly, simply, like a man who might never have received any professional training, but had nonetheless been put in a position where he’d been forced to learn how to kill very quickly and very efficiently indeed.

From what Lex had heard, Umbranox never had been one to give orders. He was a lazy and irresponsible man, or so the rumours went, always willing to leave the business of running Anvil to his wife. A feckless, charming wastrel. Lex tried not to judge men on rumour and conjecture – no matter how tempting that might be in the count’s case – but it was certainly true that he could count on one hand the number of direct orders he’d received from Umbranox’s lips.

Well, he was giving orders now.

"Gather the dead," he barked. "And make damned sure you do it with care and respect."

As if that needed to be said. Lex gave Godrik a meaningful look, and the man ducked his head to hide a scowl that might have been shame or defiance. Then, as Lex turned to follow, Umbranox snapped, "Not _you_ , Lex, for fuck’s sake. Help me with the girl."

"My Lord." He moved forward to clasp the woman’s legs, and the crows hopped back as Umbranox set the blade to the rope and began to saw, using the vicious hooks and notches in the blade to shred the hempen fibres.

The rope went slack and the corpse dropped. She was lighter than she’d expected. Her hair brushed against his clean-shaven jaw as he cradled her in his arms like a lover, her head lolling on his shoulder. He laid her in the heather, unfastened his cloak and spread it over her body to cover her from view, while Umbranox leaned against the tree with the weary posture of a man seldom free from pain.

"How old would you say she is?"

Lex tugged the cloak unwillingly back from the woman’s face. "Perhaps twenty? Younger?"

"Barely more than a child." The count made a sound, something between a bark of humourless laughter and a snarl, and it drew Lex’s attention up towards him. There was rage in the count’s dark eyes, an unchecked, untrammelled fury, and if Lex had been a more easily intimidated man he might have flinched back as Umbranox shoved himself away from the tree, stabbing a finger at the body. "I want the bastards who did this brought to justice. Unless, of course, you don’t think it worth expending your resources on the righteous execution of a handful of _heretics._ "

Lex flushed, starting to his feet. "You know very well that isn’t true."

The count jerked his head towards the valley. "Capital. And the rest of your men?"

"They’ll do what needs to be done. I’ll make certain of it." And then, remembering who he was talking to, he added a bitter "My _Lord."_

For a moment, the two men stared at each other, then Umbranox sagged, the rage draining from his eyes so swiftly he managed to leave Lex feeling off-balance again. "Good," he said, wiping his hand down over his face. "Good. And forgive me, Captain, I didn’t mean to impugn the honour of either you or your men."

 _Yes, you damn well did_ , Lex thought, but kept silent, his jaw tight.

Umbranox dropped his hand weakly to his side. "Gods, I need a drink. Have the men prepare the bodies for return to Anvil. With any luck they’ll all be claimed by their families."

"I doubt anyone would be willing to risk it, My Lord."

Umbranox faltered, casting a glance back at the body beneath its makeshift shroud. "Things can’t have got so bad, surely?"

Lex hesitated. "I wouldn’t have said so," he admitted, "but people are frightened. It’s difficult to predict how they will react..."

"...When they’re afraid that admitting to kinship with a daedra-worshipper might be enough to draw retaliation their way?"

Lex nodded.

The count grimaced, then moved to his horse with a definite hitch to his step. "You’re very likely right. Well, fine, but let’s give them the chance to claim their dead anyway." He mounted his horse, a look of pain twisting his features as he adjusted his position in the saddle. He hid it by reaching down to stroke the neck of his horse – a stolid Colovian gray, docile and dependable and about as unpredictable as a boulder that hadn’t moved in centuries. The count was not, and never had been, a natural rider. "If no one comes forward to claim them, I’ll make sure the costs of their funerals are covered." Then he lifted his gaze to the branches of the tree, now thick with crows and ravens, and his voice flooded with venom. "And have someone do something about those fucking birds."

"My Lord?" Lex glanced at the tree, puzzled. "They’re only carrion birds."

The count’s expression crumpled inwards. He kept his gaze fixed on the massing birds for a long few moments, his posture eerily still, before he shook himself, and his face smoothed out, becoming expressionless as a player’s mask. "No, of course you’re right, Captain," he said and bared his teeth in a bitter humourless grin. "As always."

ii

They rode through the rolling hills of the highlands, where the grassy slopes were thick with heather and wildflowers and dotted with trees shaped by exposure, gnarled and hunched against the wind. Through valleys where sheep grazed, they caught occasional glimpses of the sea on the horizon. The calls of gulls and the crisp chirp of crickets accompanied them as they rode past ancient hedgerows and crumbling drystone walls, following the land as it sloped gradually down towards where Anvil lay nestled in its bay.

Lex had little interest in the countryside. He was a city boy born and bred. Here he felt too exposed, especially without his cloak and with the wind whipping at him with such force that it felt like slapping hands slapping. The count seemed unconcerned by the bleak landscape, drinking it all in as if he took great pleasure in it. Perhaps because he might not be able to enjoy the sight for much longer. His eyesight was said to be failing, some congenital fault in his family line. Lex might have pitied him if he hadn’t felt so uneasy. Or so guilty.

He smelled the reek of the gate before he saw it, half-hidden by a copse of trees, jagged metal spikes clawing their way out of the earth around the scar on the ground. The rusting iron had coloured the earth the dull brownish red of old blood.

Lex would have ripped them all down if he could have done so. They were a mockery of all that was good and decent and holy. Even now he still woke from restless dreams, certain he could smell the gate’s acrid sulphurous reek in the air, or, worse, on his skin, as if some of the ash he’d breathed in while the gate stood open now came seeping out through his pores.

Unnerved, his horse pranced sideways, although the count’s placid beast remained completely unconcerned, lowering its head to crop the grass.

"It should be torn down," Lex said. "Utterly destroyed."

The count shrugged. "Perhaps. But my beloved wife disagrees. She feels it should stand as a monument, a reminder of everyone who lost their lives. Like the dragon in the Imperial City."

Lex resisted the urge to snort. "That’s entirely different."

"That’s right, you’ve seen the dragon, haven’t you?" The count turned a look of curiosity on him, his eyes a bright flashing reminder of the young man he’d used to be. A man Lex had never met. "I forgot you made a pilgrimage there."

"It was hardly a pilgrimage."

"No? Indulge me, Captain, I beg you. I haven’t left Anvil in months and I’m unlikely to get the chance to do so any time soon. Allow me to live vicariously through you."

Lex had the distinct feeling that he was being laughed at.

"What was the dragon like?" the count continued. "Holier than the remnants of the gate, I take it?"

"Anything’s holier than that," Lex muttered, staring down at the jagged shards of iron.

"Lex." This time Umbranox’s voice held a faintly amused note of warning, the delicate reminder that the count could always make it an order if necessary.

He closed his eyes for a moment as he searched for the words, for any words that could accurately and adequately capture his awe at the dragon that had in a single stroke bought the crisis to an end, and which now stood in the ruins of the Temple of the One. Impossibly vast, its outstretched wings cast a scalloped shadow across the cobbled plaza, so beautifully hewn it seemed it might at any moment shake its head on its sinuous neck, and beat its wings, and take off into the sky. Children were allowed to play on and around it, while their parents prayed or looked on indulgently. And still it had taken Lex what seemed like an age to gather up the courage to touch the dragon’s flank, feeling like a misbehaving schoolboy expecting a scolding from his tutor at any moment, because it didn’t seem like touching the dragon ought to be allowed.

When he’d set his hand to the stone that wasn’t quite stone he found it warm to the touch, as warm as skin, and beneath its surface he could feel what seemed like a faint but unmistakable thrum of life, and his blood had filled with heat and longing for something he couldn’t quite vocalise, even within the privacy of his own thoughts.

Lex shook himself.

"It was… a thing to be seen, My Lord," he said. "It’s not something that can be described."

"Well, that’s certainly convenient for you," the count observed. "And most unfortunate for me."

On their arrival at Castle Anvil, they returned their horses to the stables. A pair of maidservants on their way to market scurried past, arm in arm, and the bolder of the two called out a greeting to Lex, only for them both to dissolve into giggles when he returned it. They bobbed curtseys at Umbranox, and he gazed after them with a glint in his eye that suggested he was contemplating what he might have done if he were twenty years younger. And, Lex hoped, unmarried.

"And that," Umbranox commented, sounding faintly wistful, "is why I’ll always have a place in my heart for Anvil. There’s never been a city quite so welcoming."

Lex grunted.

The count turned a wry knowing eye on him. "And yourself, captain? No plans to seek a wife? Or, if that seems like too much responsibility for your tastes, a woman?"

Lex’s treacherous thoughts flitted with inevitability to the countess. His cheeks warmed. "I… I’ve hardly had the time, My Lord. What with everything that’s happened, and now _this_ –" He broke off abruptly, the words ‘heretic business’ on the tip of his tongue. Clearly the count knew exactly what he’d been about to say: his expression had hardened. "–This bloody business," he finished, avoiding the count’s gaze.

A few moments of silence followed. "Come," Umbranox said, finally, "let’s take a stroll in the gardens. I want a word with you, Lex."

The gardens at Castle Anvil were, to Lex’s mind, some of the finest in the province, less formal than the gardens in the Imperial City. There was a wildness to them, walls of soft gray stone draped with ivy and honeysuckle and wild climbing roses. Aside from the countess’s cloister and the castle’s vast vegetable and herb garden, they were open to the public, and there were a thousand and one spots for lovers to pause a while, unseen by prying eyes.

The count led Lex to a raised verandah with views out over the bay. This part of the garden had been designed to reflect the wild salt-rimed nature of the Gold Coast, with dune grasses and hardy wildflowers sprouting from between lichen-covered rocks.

The count leaned on the wall and stared out towards the sea. "You’re a pious man, aren’t you, Lex? You believe with all your heart in the teachings of the Nine?"

Lex hesitated. "Of course, My Lord, but..."

"And your opinion of daedra-worshippers?" No anger in the count’s voice, only a bone-deep weariness. "No prevaricating. I want your honest opinion."

Another hesitation. Lex bit into the inside of his cheek and tasted blood. The count glanced at him, nodded for him to go on, and reluctantly Lex did. "It’s my honest opinion that they’re a bunch of benighted heretics and perverts." he said and the count nodded, pinched at the bridge of his nose, and sighed wearily.

"Well, I certainly can’t deny that. Still–"

"But heresy isn’t a crime, and nor is perversion, in and of itself." Lex paused, expecting the count to interject, but he only folded his arms and waited for Lex to continue. "If you are implying I would allow my… my personal beliefs to intervene in this matter, I can assure you that you’re very much mistaken."

"’The Law is Sacred.’" the count said softly. Then: "The Vigil of Stendarr disagrees with you on the matter of daedra worship, no matter the detail of the law."

"Aye. You can be sure I’ll be speaking to _them_ about this matter."

"Capital. I’d also suggest you take care what you say to the men. I’m not sure they’re all quite so able to put their personal beliefs to one side. And I don’t want the word ‘heretics’ used outside of this conversation, do I make myself clear?"

Lex nodded, then saw his opportunity and grabbed for it. "Perhaps I ought to remain here to oversee the matter rather than accompanying Countess Umbranox to the Imperial City. Given the circumstances..."

"Absolutely not. Millona’s safety remains my top priority." The count raised an eyebrow. "I’d assumed it was also yours."

"It is," Lex said, "of course, My Lord, only..." He faltered, at a loss. As much as he was dreading the prospect of the journey to the capital in close proximity to Millona Umbranox, he’d been longing for it in almost equal measure.

The count took pity on him and slapped his shoulder. "Only you’re a conscientious man."

Relieved, Lex nodded.

"It’s unfortunate timing. So unfortunate that a man more cynical than I might wonder if it were deliberate."

"You’re not suggesting..."

Umbranox waved a hand dismissively. "I’m not suggesting anything. Most likely it’s coincidence. I only know I’d feel happier if she’d agree to putting her case to the Mages’ Guild to overturn the suspension on teleportation, although that carries its own dangers these days. Still, I cede to my wife’s judgement." He shot Lex an odd look. "In all things."

"I’m not certain what you mean, My Lord."

"Oh, I think you do, Lex," the count said softly. "I think you do."

The uncomfortable silence that followed was interrupted by someone hallooing Lex’s name across the garden. Startled, Lex broke the count’s gaze and looked around to see a man emerging from the arch that led to the rest of the grounds. Dressed in wide-legged linen pants and loose hempen shirt, and with a neatly trimmed dark beard and short-cropped fringe of dark hair, he walked with a heavy limp, leaning his weight on a walking stick topped with a silver dragon. It took Lex a moment or two to recognise him, it had been so long since he’d seen his cousin out of his legion armour.

They clasped forearms, and Marcus slapped Lex’s shoulder as they broke away. "Godsblood, Lex, you bastard, I’d swear you get younger every day."

"You joke," the count commented, "but it’s nothing but the truth. It’s really quite infuriating."

Lex had very nearly forgotten he was there. "Forgive me, may I introduce His Lordship, Corvus Umbranox, Count of Anvil. My Lord, allow me to present Marcus Surellius, a praefect of the Sixth Legion, and an old family friend."

Marcus’s gaze shifted to the count, taking on a darker glint. "So you’re the count," he said, with an insolent tone that made Lex wince. "After all the tales I’ve heard told about you, My Lord, I’d have thought you’d be taller."

"And wickeder, no doubt," the count said, smiling.

"I’d bow, My Lord, but..." Marcus lifted his cane and thumped it down on the stone.

Umbranox lifted his hand in a gesture of demurral. "No need, sir. Besides, your reputation precedes you. I also know why you’re here. I presume you’ve already met with my wife…?"

Marcus inclined his head. "She’s been most generous, My Lord. More than I could have hoped. There are a great many wounded legionaries whose lives will be made a great deal easier thanks to Countess Umbranox."

"Only what you deserve, I’m quite certain. What was it, three Oblivion Gates you closed? The whole of Cyrodiil owes you a debt of gratitude." Umbranox’s gaze flitted from Marcus to Lex. "Well, I’ll let you two get on. Forgive me, gentlemen, it’s been a trying day. Do be sure to remember what I said, Lex, won’t you?"

"Now there’s a wily old fox," Marcus observed as the count vanished through the archway. "I’d watch out for him if I were you, Lex. The gods know what the countess sees in him. She’s a fine-looking woman for her age, and he’s… Well, ‘battered’ is kinder than he deserves."

"Lady Millona is the noblest woman who ever drew breath," Lex said distractedly, wondering exactly which bit of their conversation the count had in mind when he’d urged Lex to remember what he’d said. Unbidden, an image of the count bending over the Lady Millona and bringing her hand to his lips to kiss rose up in his thoughts.

Marcus was watching him keenly. "Just a pity the husband decided to come back, eh?" he said, and Lex flushed.

iii

He’d found the portrait during his explorations of the castle when he’d first arrived in Anvil, hidden in a dusty half-forgotten storeroom cluttered with boxes, and old-fashioned pieces of furniture draped with threadbare sheets and cobwebs. The floor was littered with rat droppings, and there was a musty mouldering smell to the air. He surveyed the room with a brief glance, and would have turned to go if the light hadn’t caught on something unexpected: a glimmer of something bright hidden away in a place where all else was drab and forgotten.

It was a painting, leaning against the wall with its face turned inwards. It was the golden gilding on its frame that had caught the light and Lex’s attention.

He hesitated, unnerved by the feeling that he was somewhere he was not meant to be, then moved deeper into the storeroom, setting the lantern upon a splintered sideboard. He kicked aside the corpse of a dessicated mouse and tilted the portrait away from the wall, only an inch or so at first, and then a little further when his gaze caught on a woman’s face.

His heart gave a treacherous little flutter. Less than a month he had been in Anvil, and he was already half in love with the countess. A few more weeks and his heart would be lost completely.

No doubt it had been abandoned here for a very good reason.

He made to stand with every intention of leaving, but instead found himself heaving the portrait carefully around, so that it leaned against the wall face outwards. Then he sat back on his haunches, his mouth dry, because he’d recognised the painting for what it was: Countess Umbranox’s wedding portrait.

Her painted image was of a woman much younger, her clothes and ash-blonde hair in a style some twenty years out of date – even for Anvil – and her expression was one of the purest joy. Which meant the young man in plain Colovian finery beside her, whose dark laughing eyes were turned on her in adoration, could be no one else but her husband and the man who had abandoned her.

Strange that a man who gazed upon a woman so lovingly could desert her without so much as a backwards glance, but stranger still was Lex’s sudden certainty that he already knew this man. Despite never having seen him before. Despite the strangely forgettable qualities of his face, the features that didn’t quite fix in the mind no matter how intently Lex studied them. The moment he looked away, they were gone, dissipating like smoke. Nor could he seem to to recall the man’s name, although he really ought to have been able to remember the name of the husband of the countess into whose service he’d been sworn. Odd that he couldn’t.

Finding the portrait seemed to chase away the last of his resentment at his transferral, at having been outwitted by the Gray Fox at the last moment when he’d come so close to seeing that bastard rotting in jail where he belonged. If any doubts did still linger, then the opening of the Oblivion Gates would put an end to them forever.


	2. Two

**Two**

****

i

Corvus woke her, as he so often did these days, screaming. She jerked awake, lay for a moment, frozen in confusion as she readjusted to something she hadn’t been used to for the best part of a decade, the warmth of a body in the bed beside her. Even if the owner of that body was thrashing about and clawing at the covers.

She felt a flood of stark relief when her memories returned, and she rolled towards him, wrapping her arm around his chest and pulling his shuddering body against hers. She brought her mouth to his ear.

"You’re dreaming, Corvus."

He jolted and went still, every muscle bunched and quivering, his breath coming in ragged little gasps. His eyes, she knew, would be roaming the shadows, seeking out every scrap of light. She felt in the darkness for his cheek, and rose up above him, turning his face towards hers so that she could press her lips to his, brief butterfly kisses, and in between, she whispered: "You’re safe, you’re safe, you’re home."

"Millona?" He murmured her name like a question, and a chill prickle of disquiet shivered over her skin, because who else could he have been expecting? She shoved it away, and pressed her face into his chest, drawing in the salt-brine scent of the fresh sweat left on his skin from their love-making. Even now there were still moments when she couldn’t quite be sure if the face she pictured in the darkness was that of the man she married, or the man he had become, or someone else entirely, a stranger who wore her husband’s altered face like a mask.

"I’m here."

He rose abruptly, extricating himself from her gently but firmly. The embers of the fire cast a reddish glow over his naked form as he crossed to the sideboard, scars old and new standing out in stark relief. Millona felt another secret prickle of disquiet at how utterly his body had changed over the ten years they’d been apart, but then hers had too, hadn’t it, her breasts no longer quite so high and firm, her belly bearing the faint silvery marks that were all that remained of the one pregnancy she’d managed to bring to term.

He poured himself a glass of wine from the carafe, watered it with down with the least amount of water he could get away with, and then in a second more considered gesture forced himself to add a little more. She could tell by the expression on his face as he brought the glass to his lips that he really wanted brandy.

"What did you dream about?" she called out to him.

"Perhaps I don’t remember."

She rose to a kneeling position on the bed, covering her breasts reflexively with her arm as the covers fell away. He turned to watch her, his gaze appraising and appreciative. "You promised you’d never lie to me again," she reminded him.

"Well..." He took a swallow and grimaced at the taste. "Knowing me, I expect I was probably lying at the time."

The tears rose up without warning, her face crumpling. It had been a long time since she’d last wept. Not once all through the long period when he’d been gone, and rarely since his return. It was as if part of her had been frozen in ice the moment he left, and was only now starting to thaw.

He glanced at her with a look of distress as what he’d said began to pierce the veil of nightmares and clinging sleep. "Oh gods, no, don’t listen to me. Don’t listen to a word I say, my love."

And still the tears kept coming. She covered her face with hands, a distant isolated part of her wondering at how easy it was for her to cry, after so long with her emotions numbed.

She heard Corvus’s feet padding on the carpet, and then he was kneeling on the bed before her, catching hold of her wrists and pulling her hands down, kissing her tears away and begging her not to listen to him. She wanted to laugh at him for suggesting it could ever be so simple.

He pressed his forehead to hers, his eyes squeezed shut. "I swore I’d never make you cry again," he said.

She reached up, tangled her fingers in his hair. "It isn’t your fault," she said, and inwardly a quiet bitter voice whispered,  _ Not this time _ .

"Then what? Tell me and I’ll do anything in my power to fix it." He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles.

"I’m afraid."

"Of what?"

"I’m not even sure I know..." But that clearly wasn’t true. "I suppose..." She exhaled, and on the outward breath came the whisper, "That you’ll leave again."

He entwined his fingers with her. "I’ll never leave you again," he said fiercely, and she wondered who he was trying to convince. "Never again."

"Tell me you don’t think about it."

He hesitated, and she closed her eyes.

"Sometimes, perhaps," he said reluctantly. "But very rarely. Only ever when the dreams are at their worst." He took her hand and pressed it over his heart. "In my dreams I’m him again, and there are times when it feels like it’s seeping into everything, sapping all the light from my life." He cupped her cheeks. "If I left… I mean, I won’t, I  _ won’t, _ but–"

"But if you did," she repeated numbly.

"It would only ever be to keep you safe."

She gave a bitter choked up laugh. "I can take care of myself. I did for ten years."

"And I’m not sure you’ll ever know how much I admire that. You’re strong, Millona. Stronger than I ever was." His hand skimmed over her belly, and she could sense the turn his thoughts are taking; in the months since she’d taken him back into their wedding bed she hadn’t fallen pregnant. No miscarriages either, but she couldn’t tell whether that made things better or worse. "I’ve failed you in everything."

And that was too much for Millona, the naked heartache in his voice, and how the sound of it seemed to bring the shadows lurking at the edges of the room creeping closer.

"You came back."

"I took too damned long about it."

"Yes, but you came back. You came back and you’ll never leave again." She swallowed. "I’m not so innocent. Perhaps I’ve failed you too."

He gave a low chuckle. "You could never fail me."

"No, you don’t understand..." She pulled away, rolled onto her side. "I broke our wedding vows."

"With Lex."

She went still. "You knew?"

He sat back, regarding her gravely. There was no accusation in his eyes, and no hurt either, unless he was keeping it well hidden. "I’ve known for a while."

Shame flared, and she shrank away from him, covering her breasts with her arm again. "Tell me you weren’t spying on us."

"No. Gods no, but… I could hardly fail to notice. The way he looks at you. The way you look…  _ looked _ at him."

"And you’re not angry?"

"With you? How could I ever be?" He cupped her cheeks, and kissed her, a slow deep intimate kiss. She lay down and they curled towards each other, her hand sliding over his waist, tracing the scars the life he’d chosen had left on his skin.

"It only happened the once." She faltered. "When the gate opened, I was so afraid..."

His fingers drew slow intricate circles on her shoulder, dipping down to her collarbone and back again. He kept his eyes on her, drinking the sight of her in as his touch slipped to the rise of her breasts, and up again, a little lower every time, and agonisingly slow. His touch ignited the flames of desire in her belly, making her heart beat a little faster and raising goosebumps on her skin.

"Are you cold?" he asked. "I can stoke up the fire."

She shook her head. "Not cold."

He made a soft sound in the back of his throat and leaned closer to kiss her neck. "You don’t have to explain," he murmured, and she caught her breath. His fingers had found her breast and were circling her nipple, which stiffened at his slow careful touch. "Well… perhaps I do have just one question."

Instead of asking it he pushed her carefully onto her back, cupped her breast, and lowered his mouth to her nipple, curling his tongue around it. He sucked it gently into his mouth while she dropped her head back against the pillow, her fingers knotting in his hair.

"What question?" she barely managed, because his mouth working at her breast was sending sparks of pleasure and desire shooting through her, and his hand was sliding down between her legs. She was still slick from their earlier love making, which had been fast and almost brutal, although not for want of him trying to slow it down. He preferred it like this, liked to make her wait, to pleasure her slowly and carefully, to bring her repeatedly to the brink until she was begging him to fuck her. Before he’d left she’d found it both endearing and infuriating how smug he could be, how certain of his own skill.

These days she had little patience for taking it slow. There was an edge to her desire now, an emptiness he never could quite seem to fill, no matter how clever his fingers or his cock or his tongue. She’d rip at him with her nails, bury her teeth in his neck as she came, pulling at his hair hard enough to hurt, as if, despite her claim that she’d forgiven him, part of her still longed to punish him for all the time he’d left her alone, for all the times he’d robbed her of  _ this _ . All at once both loving him and hating him all the more for how he let her scratch and pull and bite, and never once complained.

He found her wet and slick, but not ready, not for his tastes. He dabbled his fingers into the wetness. Slid them deeper, as his mouth worked at her breast. She gave a growl of warning. "What  _ question _ ?"

He pulled back to see her face as his fingers slipped gently around the nub of her pleasure, careful to avoid it; he was smiling, but she couldn’t tell if it touched his eyes. "What was he like?"

"He was very young."

He cocked his head, considering. "I can’t tell if that’s a good thing or a bad thing." She could heat the wet liquid sounds of her cunt, smell the scent of their lovemaking rising, his seed mingling with her slick wetness. "Are you still drawn to him?"

"That’s two questions," she said softly. "You said you’d only ask one."

The movements of his fingers inside her went still and she exhaled, biting back a curse of frustration. "You’re right," he said, his voice slow and sad. "I did."

Millona reached up and pulled him down into a slow languorous kiss, his erection pressing urgently against her thigh.

"You are my husband," she told him. "I always knew you’d come back. I want no man but you." And even as she spoke, she wasn’t quite sure if it was entirely the truth. The Corvus she remembered was never quite so broken, nor so bitter.

She shifted her position beneath him, a single roll of her hips and the tip of his cock was pressing at her entrance.

He groaned, planted a hand beside her head to steady himself, and brought his lips to her neck, a little more hunger to his kisses now. She slid her hands down either side of his spine, wrapped her legs around him, and pulled him, without warning, without preamble, inside her. He gasped, gave a moment’s blind wild thrust, the shaft of his cock grazing the front of her sex, and she gloried in the sensation of being filled by him, of his weight pinning her down, before his infuriating smug certainty in his own skill kicked in and he started to adjust his position for a better angle.

She wanted to scream at him that she didn’t want finesse. With her nails digging into his skin, her kisses were wild and fierce and biting and angry, and she ground her hips up towards him, but he’d already come that night, and seemed in the mood to take it slowly. He pulled back, watching her face as he thrust, the base of his shaft grinding against her until she came, her back arching up towards him as pleasure flooded her body, her breath ragged and panting.

He kissed her as she recovered, returning to her body. Her fingers were still knotted in his hair. The pulse fluttered in the hollow of her throat, echoing the convulsing of her cunt around his shaft, hard as steel and motionless inside her. She dropped back and tightened her legs around him. No longer able or willing to hold back, he began to thrust, his earlier finesse forgotten. He reached beneath her backside at her urging, and pulled himself harder, deeper inside her. Not gentle, not any more, and something about the thrusts of his cock inside her, exhausted as she was, rekindled a spark of pleasure inside her. His breath burned hot on her neck as he lost any semblance of control, and he came groaning her name like an invocation.

There was a moment or two of stillness. He kept his weight braced on his forearms, but he was still so close pressed against her she might have been able to feel his heart beating. His heart and hers, separated by so little: only two rib cages, prisons of flesh and muscle and bone and fat and skin. As glorious as the pleasure was, this was the moment she truly lived for, her world shrunk down to the scent of his skin and seed and the heat of his breath on her skin. It was only in these quiet stolen moments that she could feel certain, in this splintered world of his making, that this was the man she married.

He stroked her hair and brought his lips to hers in a gentle sweet kiss, and gods how could she ever have doubted him? How could she ever have been afraid?

When he went to roll off her she clung to him, wanting to keep him inside her for as long as possible, forever if she could, wanting to keep the two of them trapped in this moment of catching their breath, of the rapid skitter of their heartbeats settling back to normal, of her body still pulsing around him.

But here was another familiar thing she could be certain of: Corvus never could keep his mouth shut for long.

He nipped gently at an earlobe, and murmured, "I could have sworn you were drawing close again. Would you want me to–"

"No!" She laughed, and pushed his shoulder lightly. "What I’d like is to get some sleep."

"Ah well, if you’re certain." He slipped out of her, leaving a damp smear against her thighs. She lay down, tugging the covers over herself, waiting while he wiped himself, listening out for his movements as her eyelids grew heavy, sleep reaching out to claim her once more. The bed shifted with his weight, and she felt the kiss of the cooler air as he lifted the covers and slipped in beside her, spooning into her. How easily, how sweetly his body slotted into hers, how safe she felt with the solid warmth of his body against her back and his arm wrapped around her. She tilted her head back, felt his lips brush against her cheek, and her eyes fluttered closed.

"I’m going to miss you," he murmured, and she told herself he was talking about her journey to the Imperial City.

She reached back and caressed his hair, seeking reassurance. As her heartbeat slowed, the shadows seemed to flock closer, and her fears began to creep back in. In the darkness he could be anyone, really, and the closer she drew to the date of her departure, the more acute those fears became. With him so far away, there would be nothing to stop her from forgetting him again.

Come with me, she wanted to say, but she knew she couldn’t. One of them had to stay.

She swallowed. "Perhaps it would be better if Lex remained here," she said. "If you’d feel–"

"No," he said firmly. "I want him with you."

"Corvus..."

"I want him with you. With the province in the state it is, I’d feel better knowing you had such a staunchly loyal protector at your side."

She sighed, conceding, and closed her eyes as sleep edged ever closer. It was at these moments, at the brink of sleep and just after making love, when she felt safest. Not that that was saying much.

"Promise me you’ll never leave me again."

He kissed her cheek. "I’ll never let you be alone again."

"That’s not the same thing," she murmured. She was almost at the edge of sleep when he spoke again, his voice so soft she’d never know if he really said it, or if it was part of the embroidery of her dreams.

_ I know. But it’s close enough. _

****

ii

The storm broke, and several days of torrential rain followed, hailstones the size of a man’s fist clattering down from the bruise-black sky. In between the bursts of rain the air was so warm and humid it felt like breathing steam. Lex would wake in his chamber to find his bedclothes damp with sweat, and in the barracks his men were restless and mutinous, arguments breaking out at the slightest provocation.

The bodies had been brought back from the shrine, drawn through the gates of the city on a covered carriage and delivered to a chill quiet corner of the Chapel’s undercroft. As he’d expected, no one had come forward to claim any of the bodies, and none of his questioning had come to anything. The newly formed Vigil of Stendarr had proved particularly useless.

He lost himself in the preparations for his journey to the Imperial City, the prospect filling him with both excitement and nervousness. Lady Millona had, rather unsurprisingly, been distant with him since her husband’s return, but even the merest glimpse of her still had the power to make his heart leap.

It was hard to tell how matters stood between the countess and her husband. Their relationship seemed like a strange sort of dance, one that shifted between love and indifference. One moment they’d dance attention upon each other like lovestruck adolescents, the next seem as wary as strangers. Lady Millona in particular, seemed from time to time to stare at her husband as if she barely recognised him, as if, Lex thought, she were afraid of him.

The storms had everyone on edge.

The count sank into one of his periodic bouts of depression, and on the third day of the storms the word went round the castle that a mysterious fit had left him completely blind. They were strange things, the count’s fits, defying even the most skilled healers, although so far they had always proved temporary. This one, so the talk amongst the servants went, had been particularly severe, but when Lex finally saw the count that evening, white-faced and weary and reeking of brandy, his eyesight had apparently recovered. Privately, Lex suspected the fits were more likely to be caused by the count’s drinking than anything else, but still there was something odd about them.

And finally,  _ finally _ , the storms passed over. There was a normal day or two of normal weather, of a brief respite from the relentless sweltering heat and humidity. Of course it couldn’t last. The moment they dared to think the weather might finally be returning to normal, Anvil woke to find the air filled with a strange reddish mist. On closer inspection it was found not to be any natural mist or fog but countless drifting spores the colour of blood, which clung like burrs to clothes, hair, skin. No one had ever seen anything like it before, but there was no doubt that the spores were a lingering remnant of Oblivion. They were poisonous too, stinging the eyes and nostrils and leaving burning welts on skin.

Lex, who unlike his predecessor refused to allow all but the most extremes of weather affect his duties, did his rounds of the city as normal, before seeking refuge in the Chapel of Dibella, where other townsfolk who’d risked leaving their homes were unwinding scarves from their faces, pale and shaken and itching for gossip. Lex scratched at the throbbing blisters on the back of his hand, but the chapel’s healers were seeing to a small boy covered in welts and fighting for every snatched breath, so instead Lex circled clockwise around the chapel to the altar of Stendarr.

Kneeling, he sought for the still small moment of internal quiet to commune with his god, but his thoughts were churning and there was little peace to be found. The Chapel was anything but tranquil. As always at times of inclement weather – although perhaps a poisonous swarm of spores from a daedric hellspace could not really be described as ‘inclement’ – the few cityfolk brave enough to leave their homes had gathered in the chapel to gossip and complain.

Had they thought it would be easy, Lex wondered. That defeating Mehrunes Dagon’s forces would bring an end to it? Lex was Legion-trained, but he’d never seen war. He was too young. He’d scarcely ventured beyond the outer banks of the Rumare, let along the borders of Cyrodiil, and like the young fool he was, he’d stood and cheered with all the rest when the news came that Emperor Martin Septim had defeated Mehrunes Dagon. The other less auspicious details came trickling through later: that many members of the Mythic Dawn had evaded capture; that, in defeating Dagon, the Emperor had sacrificed himself, leaving them without a Septim on the throne. And still, Lex had told himself it didn’t matter. That it was over.

What a fool he was. No wonder the Gray Fox had been able to run rings around him.

Nothing had been right since the gates had opened. The seeds and spores the daedra had stamped into the ground in their flood of blood and slaughter had taken root, strangling the vegetation all around. The air of the Deadlands itself had been brought through too, a subtler more insidious poison that seeped unnoticed into Mundus and tainted the currents in the air and in the water. The past winter had been unnaturally cold, so bitter Lake Rumare had frozen over for the first time in centuries, and the rains so heavy half of the Nibenay Basin was under several feet of floodwater. And now, as the first year of the new era turned in its lumbering cycle, came the crushing oppressive heat. Gods only knew what summertide would bring.

His prayers brought little comfort. Finally, he stood, supped from the ladle of clear spring water, and sought refuge in the undercroft where his murdered heretics were waiting.

At least here he found a kind of peace. The high vaulted ceilings soaked up the sound of his footsteps and the air was still and cool. The stone figures slumbered in their niches, here and there a sprig of lavender or a pile of black pennies left as offerings to the dead.

The heretics were tucked away at the farthest reaches of the labyrinth of crypts, where the flickering torches grew less numerous, and Lex needed a lantern to light his way. They had been wrapped in shrouds enchanted to prevent decay, awaiting whatever meagre justice he could give them. Lex was already starting to suspect it wouldn’t be much.

As he stepped through the arch to the final chamber something skittered in the darkness. A shape darting off into the shadows.

He raised the lantern, calling out, "Who’s there?"

Silence followed, the only sound the beating of his heart as his gaze swept the chamber before settling on the body of the dead woman, the lantern light catching on her glassy eyes. Someone had uncovered her face.

All at once the silence and stillness in the chamber seemed as unnatural as a held breath, and he touched his free hand to the hilt of his sword.

"This area’s off-limits. You’re trespassing here," he called out. "Come out at once and I won’t hurt you." He hoped it was true; he had little appetite for violence today. He heard a scuffle at the far end of the room, and he moved slowly past the benches that held the corpses of the murdered dead, glancing under the tables.

There.

A figure crouched at the far corner of the chamber, hands braced against the ground. A girl, he thought, the lantern light playing over a pallid moon-face. A thieves’ hood covered her hair. Eyes that seemed too large for her face stared at him with fear.

"Out you come, girl," he ordered, not unkindly. She hesitated, looking like she was thinking of running, then scowled and slid out reluctantly, trying to skirt around the edge of the room. Breton by the looks of her, and tiny, the top of her head barely reaching halfway up his chest. She was clutching something in her hand, trying to conceal it behind her back without him noticing.

"It’s a crime to steal from the dead."

Her head whipped around, chin jutting out. "I’m not stealing,"

"No, but you are creeping around where you’re not supposed to."

Before she could escape with her prize, his hand lashed out, grabbing her wrist. She yelped, and looked for a moment as vicious as a terrier, like she was considering kicking him in the shin, then the fight drained out of her. She let him pull her arm out from behind her back, her fingers unfurling. There was nothing valuable clutched in her hand, only a clump of black hair that looked more like something that had been disentangled from a comb than a memento of a loved one.

He stared at it, at a loss for words.

"I only wanted something to remember her by," the defiant little thief told him. "That’s all."

He let her go and she brought her arm up to her chest, hand fisting tight beneath her chin. She was a skinny skittery little thing, her eyes darting towards the door, weighing up, perhaps, whether he’d stop her if she tried to make a run for it. He took another look, trying to judge her age. Thirteen perhaps, although it was hard to tell in the gloom. Thinking even as he did so that he was being a fool, he deliberately turned his back on her, and placed the lantern on a nearby table. "Was she your sister?"

Silence met his words. He glanced around, half-expecting that she’d fled in the moment his back was turned, but she was still there, hovering on the edge of the circle of light. She didn’t speak, but made a gesture, something that was neither a nod nor a shake of the head, but an amalgam of both, with a bit of a shrug mixed in for good measure.

"Your mother?" Although the dead woman was surely too young for that. "A friend?"

Again that non-committal gesture.

"But you do know her?" he asked, and this time she made no gesture at all, only stared at him, eyes reflecting the light. He sighed. "You’re not in trouble, girl."

Finally a reaction other than mute resentment. Her lips peeled back from her teeth in a feral grin. "I’m always in trouble."

"Well... not over this, anyway." He reached into his purse and drew out the reassuring weight of a Septim, freshly minted and as yet unclipped. He turned it in the light as she edged closer. "Do you know her?"

She darted a speculative glance at him, then gave a quick little nod of her head.

"Are you related?"

She shook her head, then, unwillingly, the words seeming to force themselves out as if the last thing she wanted to do was tell him anything, she muttered, "She took me in for a bit. After the daedra killed my parents."

Another damned Oblivion Crisis orphan.

"What was her name?"

"Why do you even care?"

"I care because I’m trying to find out what happened to her." He held out the Septim a little further. She stuffed the sad little clump of hair into her pocket and edged closer like a half-starved pup wary of taking food from a man’s outstretched hand. Lex turned the coin, letting the side with Tiber Septim’s profile catch the light. "Do you know what it says?" She eyed the coin greedily as he intoned, "’The Law is Sacred’..."

"’The Empire is Law’," she finished, scowling. "I can read, you know. My da taught me. Is there an Empire any more, though? What with there not being an Emperor and all?"

Lex opened his mouth. Closed it. That was an unexpectedly tricky question to answer, although he knew it ought to be easy. He closed his fist around the coin and she let out a hiss of irritation, as if she’d known he was planning on cheating her all along. "Why didn’t you come to claim the body?"

"The fuck am  _ I _ meant to do with a dead body? Let the priests bury her. That’s what they’re good for, isn’t it? Anyway, she didn’t care about all of that."

"But don’t you want her killer brought to justice?"

Her face took on a pinched look. "Like you give a damn about the likes of her," she muttered.

"The count ordered me to bring them to justice."

The first flicker of something speculative in her eyes. She lifted her head, squinting at him. "You mean Count Umbranox? I like  _ him _ . He’s kind," she said, with a look that suggested she thought Lex was anything but. 

He might have known the count would be popular with the likes of her. Amongst the beggars, thieves and whores he was inexplicably adored. Lex had lost count of the number of criminals he’d arrested who’d begged for the count to intercede on their behalf. 

The girl scuffed the flagstones, then seemed to come to a decision. "Her name was Hestia."

"Do you know who might have hurt her?"

That non-committal shrug again, then she shook her head.

"Did you know she was..." He hesitated, glancing towards the body. When he looked back her eyes had hardened. "...That she worshipped the daedra?"

"I didn’t have nothing to do with that."

"I didn’t say you did."

"And it wasn’t like it was Him."

"Mehrunes Dagon?"

At the name her cheeks reddened with fear and fury. "She wasn’t one of  _ them _ . She didn’t have  _ nothing _ to do with what happened." Deep in the labyrinth, the sound of footprints echoed. She flinched, backing away. Lex gave a whistle. She whirled back towards him, and snatched the Septim out of the air when he threw it to her. Then she fled just as Marcus appeared in the archway.

Startled, he drew back as she scrambled past him. She gave him a wide berth as if terrified he’d reach out and grab her if she got too close, then she was lost to the shadows, her footsteps quickly fading into silence.

Marcus peered after her quizzically, then raised an eyebrow. "As popular with girls as ever, Lex?"

"It wasn’t me that frightened her." He turned to the woman, thinking wearily that it was past time the lot of them were buried. No one else was going to come.

"I came to see if you’d join me for lunch. What was all that about?"

"Just a thief," he murmured distractedly. "I probably should have arrested her."

"Losing your touch."

"Apparently so." And slowly, respectfully, he drew the shroud back over the woman’s face.

****

iii

By the time Lex and Marcus left the chapel for the Count’s Arms, most of the spores had settled and been trampled into the cobblestones. The mages had rallied out to scourge them from the streets and the acrid stench of burned plant matter lingered in the magic-soaked air.

They ate a thick peppery fish stew flavoured with paprika, Marcus drinking brandy and Lex with a small beer. Lex would have preferred to keep the conversation light, but Marcus always had been a melancholy sort, and once he was fixed on a topic it was hard to distract him. The Empire, to Marcus’s mind was teetering on the brink of chaos: no Emperor on the throne; the shifting of political allegiances in the Summerset Isles; the persistent rumours from Morrowind that Lord Vivec had disappeared; the recall of the Legions… The list went on and on and Lex, troubled by his own private concerns, had little taste for it.

"It’s not as if the Dunmer ever needed a reason to hate the Empire," he said wearily.

"Well, they’ve got one now, that’s for damned sure." Marcus drained the dregs of his glass of brandy, and went to pour another, tilting the bottle questioningly at Lex who shook his head.

It had started raining again, thankfully not the downpour of the past week, but a damp ceaseless drizzle that pattered against the closed shutters. With the fire lit and burning low the inn was warm and snug, although there were few patrons there to enjoy it, only a handful of travelling merchants and the Benirus boy who sat too close to the fire and seemed to stare into it as if seeing something in its flickering depths.

Marcus, perhaps sensing Lex’s discomfort, shifted the topic of conversation, moving onto the only marginally less uncomfortable matter of how things stood in the Imperial City. "It’s as if the moment you left the floodgates opened," Marcus said. "As if you were all that was holding the thieves and ruffians back."

"Hardly," Lex said, although privately he thought it was almost certainly true. Why else would the Fox have been so determined to get him posted to Anvil?

"You know they have a guildhouse in the Waterfront now," Marcus continued, pointing his glass at him. "A godsdamned  _ guildhouse _ . They’re as bold wharf-rats, know they can’t be touched and if they are, well, all they have to do is grease a palm and they’re free. And why the hell should Captain Quintilius care? He knows which side his bread’s buttered on. Especially after the Dark Brotherhood murdered Phillida."

Lex grimaced. Phillida had been a fine man.

"And speaking of the Dark Brotherhood," Marcus continued, eyeing him with a small grin playing at the edge of his lips. "I heard a rumour the other day about the count–"

" _ No _ ." Lex had heard a thousand and one rumours about the count’s disappearance, and a great many of them he could have well believed to be true, but not this one. The man loathed the Brotherhood; it was clear in every sinew of his frame when the subject came up. In most circumstances Umbranox was a merciful man, especially when it came to thieves, but he made an exception for assassins.

Marcus blew out his cheeks. "You’re never any fun. You never were. Not even when we were boys."

"He’s no assassin. I can’t say I approve of everything he does, but he’s a good man."

"I’ve heard he’s a liar, a womaniser and a rogue."

Well, yes. So had Lex. There were times when Lex suspected that Umbranox had even less respect for the law than he did for the gods. But like it or not, Umbranox was as good as his master now. "He seems compassionate enough," he said. A little too compassionate, perhaps.

Across the inn an argument was breaking out. On his return from the privy, Velwyn Benirus had stumbled into another man, then shoved him away with a slurred curse. With the mood in the city the way it was, most likely it would turn nasty quickly.

Lex was on his feet in moments, crossing the room to intervene. He gripped Benirus and propelled him firmly away from the other patron who was already squaring up. The reek of alcohol on the boy’s breath was enough to turn Lex’s stomach, and there was a half-mad light to his eyes that Lex didn’t like. As the other patron settled back down with a glower, the innkeeper, fighting to keep his fury in check, pointed at the door. "I want him out."

"I paid good money for my room," Benirus said, hauling against Lex’s grip in vain, trying to twist around towards the innkeeper. There was a ripping sound as a seam in his shirt tore. "My coin’s as good as anyone else’s. Better, in fact."

"Not in here it isn’t."

"You bandy-legged cockless son of a poxy whore, you’ll take my money and like it or I’ll stuff it up your gods-rotted syphilitic backside–"

"Right! Outside now." Lex booted the door open, groaned inwardly at the rain, then shoved Benirus none-too-gently through the doorway. Marcus was laughing at him. Lex darted back to snatch up his cloak and nod his farewells.

"And make sure the little shit doesn’t come back or I’ll throttle him myself," the innkeeper yelled after him.

Outside the cobbles were sticky underfoot, but at least the rain had left the air clear. Benirus had gone quiet, shivering as Lex propelled him across the plaza where the twice-weekly market set up, and along the wide cobbled streets to the quarter of the city where the wealthier homes stood, tall imposing buildings in stone set back from the streets, warm light seeping out through their shutters.

"I sleep at the inn." Benirus’s voice was weak, as slight as a child’s.

"The innkeeper says otherwise. And you have a… a perfectly good home to go to," Lex finished awkwardly as they stopped outside the Benirus mansion.

"Ha!"

The house was an eyesore. It was run-down and dilapidated, the wrought iron gate rusting and hanging off its hinges. Shards of broken glass glinted at the dark unshuttered windows. In the overgrown gardens, what looked like patches of bloodgrass were sprouting up, and Lex wondered if this garden might not have been the source of the spores. If that was true he wouldn’t want to be Velwyn Benirus in the morning when people started looking for answers.

"Well, you have a home anyway."

The boy eyed him, his expression turning sly. "You wouldn’t be in the market for a house, would you?"

Lex snorted. "Me?" But the boy had grabbed his hand, latching on.

"It’s a bargain," he babbled. "Five thousand Septims and the place is yours. As… as seen, obviously. Furniture and all."

"That’s..." Lex paused, considering the offer. "Five thousand Septims? Really?" He turned his gaze on the building, which might have been a wreck, but even in that state it had to be worth four times the amount the boy was asking. At  _ least _ . "Are you sure?"

"Quite sure. Are you interested?"

"No," Lex said, uncertainly. "No, I’m really not in the market for… And besides, you’re asking for far too little. A place like this, I mean, it’s madness to ask any less than ten thousand, no matter how urgent your business..." Somewhere in the back of his mind, his ancestors who had made their fortunes in property, mostly through taking advantage of the desperate and gullible, were screaming like all the demons in Oblivion at him.

"Seven thousand then."

Gently but firmly, Lex prised the boy’s hand from his arm. "I’m afraid I have no plans to buy a house. The answer is no."

Velwyn Benirus sagged. "Well, you can’t make me go back," he said, looking as if he was on the verge of tears. "You can’t make me."


	3. Three

**Three**

i

It was to Millona’s regret that she argued with Corvus before she left for the Imperial City, or as close to an argument as they ever got these days. His nightmares had worsened as her day of departure neared, but when pressed he refused to talk, drinking late into the evening, and some nights not coming to bed at all. On those nights she would rise and silently go into Leanis’s room, and her lady’s maid would stir and tug back the covers so that Millona could quietly, and without a word, slip into the bed beside her.

Her fury built like an electrical storm, all the hateful insults and accusations she wanted to hurl at him choking her with a seething fury that she could not vocalise, because she was terrified that if she did, she might be forced to see how irretrievably broken their marriage had become, and how absurd the thought that she could ever have taken him back. Her monthly bleeding came on, and with it yet another crushing disappointment that left her staring at her reflection in the mirror at a loss, thinking it for a moment the face of another woman.

It tore at her heart to leave Anvil: the harbour with its cluttered piles of lobster pots, and the briny tang of the sea; the distant clang of bells, and the elegant lighthouse with its beacon always burning. This city was as much a part of her as breathing, and to leave it with matters between her and her husband unresolved felt like being stifled. Especially when she was leaving it to descend into a nest of Heartland vipers. No doubt the events of the past few months had given them plenty to gossip about.

She rode in the carriage with Leanis. Lex was on horseback, leading the cavalcade. She caught snatched glimpses of him at every twist and turn of the road, the sunlight glinting on his chainmail armour, so modest compared to the gleaming enamelled plate he’d been wearing when he’d first arrived in Anvil. He was at ease in his saddle, riding like a man who had been born to it. She kept catching herself watching out for him, even as her thoughts played on Corvus, on the argument that hadn’t quite been an argument, but which she still desperately regretted.

She couldn’t even remember what it was they’d argued about, and she couldn’t tell if that was because it was a trivial matter, or a sign of something darker, a lingering remnant of his curse. She had to fight the urge to ride back and extract from him a vow that he would stay, that if he left again –  _ gods forbid  _ – that at least she could be certain he wouldn’t do it while she was away from Anvil. But she knew in truth there would be no comfort for her in such a vow, no matter how sincerely made.

The fear filled her chest like smoke, and all through the journey Leanis watched her with concern.

The weather was strangely changeable, intermittent patches of cloud casting dappled shadow pierced by golden light. Lambs gambolled in the meadows, and a shepherdess leaned on a crumbling wall, watching them pass. She seemed to be watching Lex in particular and was it Millona’s imagination, or was the captain sitting up a little higher in the saddle?

"He’ll still be there," Leanis said quietly, interrupting her thoughts. "His Lordship won’t leave it like this."

"You say that as if he’ll have a choice," Millona said. Her voice cracked, and she felt a wrench of fury at her own weakness. Leanis caught hold of her hand to squeeze her fingers and Millona drew in a breath, tearing her hand away and brushing at her skirts. "I believe I’d like to ride for a while. I could do with the fresh air."

It helped. To be on horseback with the sun on her back made her heart felt lighter. When the scudding silvery clouds cleared she could see halfway across Cyrodiil to where the White-Gold Tower pierced the heavens.

"You must be looking forward to seeing the Imperial City again," she called to Lex, riding closer to him. He followed her gaze eastwards, his expression thoughtful, then glanced at her with the hint of a smile.

"As it happens," he said, "I find I’m missing Anvil."

She laughed, and in the corner of her eye saw him take a glance at her when he thought she wasn’t looking. "You’re just saying that to please me," she said.

"I can assure you I mean every word," he said. She believed him. Lex was a simple man, in a way that Corvus never had been, not even in his youth. Too many lies, so many even he wasn’t entirely sure of what was true and what was false. Lex hesitated, then pressed earnestly on. "I even considered buying a house. Velwyn Benirus made an offer that seemed almost too good to be true."

"Not the Benirus house?" She stared at him, astonished. "You didn’t buy it, did you?"

"Is there a reason why I shouldn’t have?"

"Not exactly. In fact… not at all." She laughed again at his serious expression. "Do you think Velwyn was trying to cheat you, Captain? How much did he ask for?"

"Five thousand Septims."

She raised her eyebrows. "By the Nine, the land alone must be worth twice that."

"I know. That’s why I didn’t accept his offer. It made me uneasy."

"Perhaps it’s just as well. There’ve always been stories about that house. Ever since I was a child. The rumour is it’s cursed."

Lex snorted. "I don’t believe in curses."

"No?" She regarded him gravely.

"No. Well…" He hesitated, grimacing. "Of course, they exist, there’s no doubting that, but oftentimes, it’s how a man reacts to a curse that does the most damage. To himself, and to those around him."

And suddenly she wasn’t feeling quite so light-hearted. The weight on her chest had returned and Lex was looking at her in concern.

"My Lady? Did I say something wrong?"

"No," she managed. "Not in the slightest."

They stopped at Kvatch, which was still in the process of being rebuilt and no doubt would be for many years to come. The shanty town that had sprung up at the foot of the steep hill was quickly becoming more permanent, with a number of buildings under construction in wood and stone. While the others stopped to rest, Millona rode with Lex up the road which wound steeply up the hill towards the city. She could smell the sulphurous reek to the air that still lingered even now, and when they turned the last corner and she saw what was left of the Oblivion gate, she exhaled sharply, the air knocked from her as if she’d been punched in the gut.

She’d seen gates before, but only ever from a distance, and the ones in the wilderness were much smaller. Several gates had opened here, but the largest must have been so wide a Legion could have marched through it. Gods knew what it must have been like when it was opened, that vast eye of infernal fire, fire that she’d been told burned as cold as ice, cold enough to stop blood in the veins. She shuddered in horrified awe, imagining something like this opening up in Anvil. Kvatch in comparison should have been as impenetrable a fortress on its rocky outcrop as Sancre Tor. And still Kvatch had fallen. Then again, so had Sancre Tor.

They dismounted, and she knelt by the remains of the gate to offer up what prayers she could, to Arkay, to Akatosh, to Mara. None of her prayers seemed like quite enough, and finally she rose, dusting herself off, and returned to where Lex waited with the horses.

"You know," she told him, "you  _ should _ have accepted Velwyn’s offer. I wish you had. That house deserves to be a happy house, filled with lights and music and children, and it never will be again, not while Velwyn still owns it. He hates the place and I cannot blame him. You should buy it, Lex, buy it and settle there."

"I shouldn’t think my buying it would make a difference. I doubt I’ll ever marry..."

"Now you’re just being foolish."

"…And I can’t see much evidence that marriage brings with it anything but pain." This was followed by dawning horror on his face. "My Lady, I didn’t…" He swallowed. "What I meant to say was..."

"I think you made your meaning very clear, Captain," she said, quietly, sadly. He glanced at her.

"And aren’t you going to tell me what a fool I am?"

"Why on Nirn would I?" she said, "When it’s nothing but the truth?"

He stared at her, expression unreadable. Millona looked away, stroking her horse’s neck. "I like him," Lex said quietly. There was a strange timbre to his voice, his expression oddly disbelieving, as if this was a realisation that he had only just come to himself, as if he hadn’t known he felt that way until this moment. He sounded so disconcerted, she almost felt sorry for him. "He’s an honourable man."

Millona gave a soft laugh. "He is," she agreed. The most honourable man I’ve ever met, present company excepted." Lex stammered a blustering denial. "Of course," she continued, "he does rather tend to interpret honour in his own particular way."

"My Lady..."

"I love my husband, Lex." And now she felt nothing but a cold crushing numbness. The curving talons of the gate clawed up towards the sky. She wondered if there was a world where Mehrunes Dagon had won? A world where Corvus had never come home? "More than I can say. And I think I’m losing him."

ii

Halfway between Kvatch and Skingrad the flood damage worsened, the roads so rutted in places they were near impassable. The carriage broke a wheel, and twilight was gathering by the time they managed to mend it, so rather than pressing on for Skingrad they stopped at a wayside inn. The stableboy gaped gormlessly as Lex reached up to help Millona from her horse. She was aching a little. Used to riding she might have been, but she wasn’t as young as she once was, and the long, frustrating journey had left her sore and exhausted.

She had little appetite and the food at the inn was barely edible, a thin broth rounded out with meagre scraps of ham and a few withered root vegetables with a lingering flavour of mould. The rooms were not much better.

Leanis hissed in disgust when she tugged back the covers and saw the state of the bed in the room they were to share. "We’ll be eaten alive."

"I’m too tired to care," she said, with a quiver to her voice, regretting now her own insistence at riding. The truckle bed, of course, remained unused. The bed might be small and cramped and barely enough for one, let alone two, but Millona was damned if she’d ever sleep alone again.

iii

She dreamed of the Fox. A nightmare, which was perhaps unfair, since all the legends had him as a benign figure, protector of the poor, scourge of cheating landlords and swindling merchants alike. She could recognise in the tales Corvus’s mercurial nature and blackly irreverent sense of humour, but still she couldn’t bring herself to see the Fox as anything but evil.

In her dreams he was a monstrous hunched figure who sat atop her, holding her down while her memories shattered like a dropped mirror.

She woke with a stifled cry. Saw in the glint of moonlight that seeped through the open window a figure looming over the bed. She gasped in fright, and for the briefest moment thought it only a leftover figment of the dream that hadn’t quite been gathered back into the sleeve.

No, not a dream. There was someone else in the chamber. She realised the truth the moment she felt the chill from the open window.

A scrawny man, filthy and dressed in rags. The sour reek of an unwashed body. The silken whisper of a knife. No dream, but an intruder, set on theft or rape or murder. She had barely enough time to call out Leanis’s name before he was on her.

"For Mehrunes Dagon," he hissed, the dagger arcing down. She felt its sting as it slashed into her palms. She caught his wrist, screaming, and then he was crushing her. The blade slashed inches from her face. His other hand pressed down over her mouth, cutting off her screams. Beside her, Leanis had woken and tore at his face with her nails.

He cried out, spitting the words, "The dawn is rising!" in a thin, reedy voice. Crazed, he slashed the dagger wildly at Leanis, and when she flinched back, he thrust it into her belly and jerked it free, splattering blood over the sheets. She tumbled out of sight.

Millona kicked him hard in the stomach, and scrambled out from underneath him, but her legs tangled in the bedclothes. He seized her hair and yanked her back, pressed cold steel to her skin. As the door crashed inwards, he cut her throat.

Her mouth flooded with blood, so much it nearly choked her. It spilled hot over her fingers as she fell from the bed, clutching at her opened throat. There was a roar of fury, very distant. She saw Lex framed in the doorway driving the hilt of his sword into the cultist’s skull, and then he was coming towards her, his hands wreathed with light. He dropped to his knees beside her, and she clawed at him, trying to say Leanis’s name, iron-tasting bubbles popping on her lips. Instead of listening, he set his hand over her throat, and gods it was glorious, the streaming flood of Restoration magic that surged through her, the most exquisite pleasure mingled with burning pain.

iii

Lady Umbranox’s lady’s maid would by the grace of the gods survive. The Mythic Dawn cultist too. His throat tight with fury and regret, Lex watched the bastard being led away, weeping about paradise. Odd that he seemed almost as terrified of the prospect as he was joyous. Lex half-wished he’d murdered the bastard when he’d had the chance. Millona stood beside him, pale and wan, her hand on his arm for support.

"Perhaps," he said quietly when the cultist had gone, "we should rest here awhile, My Lady. Until you’ve seen a healer."

She shook her head. "We keep going, you and I. Alone on horseback. We’ll cover more ground that way and draw less attention."

He glanced at her throat where the wound had left a vivid red line. "Lord Umbranox might prefer it if we stayed," he ventured and knew it was a mistake when the temperature plunged a couple of degrees. He was not the sort of man to quail, but he quailed now. "That is to say… um..."

"My beloved husband is not here," she said, her tone high and clear, "and even if he was it would make no difference. His opinion has no bearing on the matter. It is my decision."

"Of course, My Lady."

"And in any case you misjudge him. He’d be furious if we wasted time. There is nowhere in Cyrodiil safer than the Imperial Palace."

"And your throat..."

She pressed her hand to the healing wound, wavering on her feet. "You can heal me as we travel, Lex. The wound’s closed, for the most part."

"I’m not that good a healer. It will scar."

She let out a sharp breath. "I don’t give a damn if it scars. I’m alive."

He’d already known how stubborn she could be once she’d made her mind up as to her course of action. When she was certain that Leanis was in good hands, and Lex as certain as he could be that the countess was fit to travel, although naturally his opinion was of far less importance, they pressed on.

They rode well into the evening, passing from time to time Legion guards patrolling the roads, who called out greetings and warnings both. They saw the eerie glow of a Will o’the Wisp drifting between the trees, and the knotted artefacts in the trees that denoted a sacred grove. In the dip of a valley the silvery gleam of an Ayleid well streamed up towards the twilight sky. For all that he was a Cyrod born and bred, there were times when Lex felt like an interloper in his own homeland. He’d had that same feeling in the Imperial City on occasion; the bones of the city were elven, repurposed by humans but never quite giving up all their secrets.

The cold beauty of the White-Gold Tower was always visible through the trees now, throwing off all rational human instincts of perspective and distance. Nothing built by the hand of men could be so enormous, yet Lex knew it was easy to let yourself be fooled if you weren’t used to the scale of it. It wasn’t the same seeing it from inside the city, where much of the time you could go about your life forgetting it was there, until the moment you looked up and felt that vertiginous sensation of searching for the top and finding it wreathed in cloud. From outside the city, it was far too easy to misjudge the distance, and think it closer.

With this in mind when they reached the next wayside inn, he insisted on stopping and was surprised when she put up no resistance.

Unwilling to let her too far out of his sight, he insisted on keeping watch outside her room, despite the umbrage taken by the innkeeper. It kept replaying in his mind, the moment the would-be assassin drew the blade across her throat, the glint of white bone he’d seen in the bloody mess. 

Tormented by that image, with how close he’d come to losing her, he wouldn’t have been able to sleep if he’d wanted to, and so the instant he heard her crying out in the night he was up and bursting through the door, sword to hand. He found her, not struggling with another assassin, but sitting up in bed, white-faced and startled by his intrusion.

"Forgive me, My Lady, I heard you cry out. I thought..."

"Just a dream," she said, shaking her head. Lex crossed to the window, which was just as it had been before she retired, tightly shuttered and bolted. "I haven’t been able to sleep properly for a very long time."

"You’re quite safe. The window’s secure, and I’m close by should anything happen."

"It’s not the cultist." Her voice was hollow, and she was shrinking in on herself. "And I have every faith in you, Lex. It’s just..." She pressed her lips together into a tight line.

"My Lady?"

"It’s been a long time since I was able to sleep in an empty bed." Her words were strained and trembling. At a loss, Lex faltered in the doorway, staring at her. She hadn’t taken the trouble to plait it for sleep and it was fell loose over her shoulders. The welt on her neck was a vivid sore-looking red.

She didn’t look at him as she gripped the covers and tugged them back, the movement quick and almost furtive. Was it an invitation? A request? An order?

He hesitated, then closed the door behind him, shutting out the light from the corridor. In the darkness he could hear her breathing as he unbuckled his sword belt and sat on the bed to remove his boots. His heart pounded as he thought of how he’d failed her, of how the count might actually have his balls for this, and then, still wearing his linen undershirt and breeches and worsted stockings, and trying not to think too hard about what he was doing, because if he did he’d be fighting an erection, he slipped between the covers.

He could feel the residual warmth of her body on the sheets. Painfully aware of the gap between them, and how urgently, how desperately, he wanted to close it, he lay on his back, his hands folded on his belly somewhere north of his cock, because he couldn’t risk putting them anywhere else. Both of them lay frozen and motionless, until she let out an unhappy sigh and rolled towards him. What little capacity for rational thought Lex had vanished completely. The erection confined by his breeches was urgent and insistent, but gods he wasn’t sure how she’d react if she brushed against it accidentally, whether she’d be scandalised, or furious, or terrified. Or, even more terrifyingly, if she brushed against it on  _ purpose _ – if her hand, for example, were to drift down towards his belly, work its way under the waistband of his breeches and clasp around the shaft of his cock.

What in the name of all the gods was he supposed to do  _ then _ ? It was one thing to tup a married woman when her husband was all but presumed to be dead, but Umbranox, with his dangerous, mocking gaze, and that sly expression that suggested he knew perfectly well that Lex had already cuckolded him, was a very long way from dead.

She burrowed into him. Lex shifted, holding out his arm and she came closer still, resting her head on his shoulder like a lover.

Something about the careful way she’d arranged herself and the press of her thigh against his through the thin cotton of her nightgown suggested she knew full well he was rock-hard and aching. Not that he could be blamed for the reactions of his treacherous body. He was, after all, mere flesh and not beyond temptation.

He thought of Umbranox, of the look in his eyes as he’d said, ‘I cede to my wife in all things.’

What on Nirn had the bastard meant by  _ that _ ?

Slowly, carefully, so as not to frighten her, to allow her countless opportunities to tell him to stop, he brought up the arm that cradled her around to press his fingers lightly against her throat. She made no protest. His magicka reserves were already well-depleted, but he didn’t need much – not for this, the first tentative wave of Restoration magic channelled through the point where his fingertips met her skin. So weak that had they been doing anything other than lying still and silent she might not have felt it.

She pressed back against the bed, a soft gasp of pleasure escaping her lips. Lex eased off, his heart pounding at his ribs. Her breathing seemed a little faster, a little less controlled.

The next time he reached for a little more magic and he used the entire palm of his hand, the tips of his fingers on the scar, his wrist resting on the swell of her breasts. She moaned, her hair spilling out across the pillow as she arched her breasts up towards him, begging him without words to drop his head to her breast and fasten his lips around the nipple. He didn’t. That seemed a step too far, but he kept the magic flooding her, watching how the shimmering light played over the hollows of her throat.

And then she was reaching down, slipping her hand between her legs, and he could hear the wet slick sounds of her fingers at work. He groaned, pressing his cock hard against her thigh. As her breath came in panting gasps, he fumbled with his free hand at the ties of his breeches, loosening them so he could reach inside to wrap his hand around his cock and slide his hand along its shaft. She pressed her face into the hollow of his throat, and what he really wanted to do, what he was desperate to do, was to pull up that nightdress the rest of the way, spread her thighs and bury his face between them.

His magic fizzled out in a stuttering little burst, but it didn’t matter because she was coming, her back arching as she cried out, and the sound of her reaching her peak drove him over the edge. He shuddered as he came in the darkness, wrapping the linen tail of his undershirt around the head of his cock to soak up his seed.

  
  


iv

In the morning, they left the inn and made good pace, arriving at Weye, the sprawling town that serviced the Imperial City, by mid-afternoon. Her spirits seemed to have brightened, but Lex was uncertain whether it was his doing or the prospect of returning to civilised society. He had thought it might feel like a homecoming, his return to the city where he had spent nearly all of his life and had once thought never to leave, but it felt like nothing of the kind.

He escorted her to the Imperial Palace, where she was greeted with all the pomp and ceremony that befitted her station. Lex remained by her side, feeling as if everyone who looked at them could see what had happened between them. As if he’d left the scent of himself lingering on her skin. Or she’d left hers on his.

When she retired to her chambers, he escaped to the palace barracks for a much-needed bath. There, immersed in the copper tub, the water fragranced with medicinal herbs, his mind turned on the awkward matter of the Umbranoxes.

There was a report from Godrik waiting for him, filled with minutiae, the details that to most were painfully tedious, but which to Lex represented the clockwork heartbeat of a city. What he wasn’t expecting, however, was the news that they’d caught the murderer of the– here, the ink smudged where Godrik had clearly started to write ‘heretics’ before scratching it out and writing ‘daedra-worshippers’ instead. One of their number, apparently, driven half-mad by Hircine’s Wild Hunt, had torn his fellows apart, then fled. Lex frowned as he read.

He hesitated a long while before he took a sheet of paper and carefully composed his reply in his neat and elegant copperplate, complimenting Godrik on his work. Something itched at him, a sense of something not quite right. Although half of the daedra ruled spheres of death and murder and treachery. It made sense. So why, he wondered, did it feel so damned wrong?

He knew the answer to that: it was too easy. It had fallen into his lap.

Like the statue of Llathasa Indarys, a gift that might as well have been wrapped up in an elaborately curled bow. He could see the Fox’s design clearly in hindsight: the myriad of other little thefts that went unnoticed, the web elegantly constructed as a trap for him and for his informant. How neat it was, and how shamefully eager Lex had been to snatch at that low-hanging fruit. That had been too easy. And so was this.

He tapped the end of the quill against his cheek, then added a single line: ‘Keep him safe.’ as a postscript. Then he folded the letter and sealed it with a blob of wax.

Lex wasn’t the only one who had correspondence awaiting him. There were letters from the count as well, one for each day of their absence from Anvil. Millona broke through the wax seal of the first and longest with haste, and Lex had to look away from the look on her face as she read her husband’s words, her eyes shining with tears, but with a smile hidden behind the fingers she pressed to her lips.

But for all that, when darkness fell and the lights were extinguished, it was still Lex in her bed, with Millona so close he could feel her heart beating, her breath warming his skin, and a flock of possibilities swarming in the shadows about them. Entirely chaste, right up until the moment she took his hand and brought his fingers to her skin.

It couldn’t last forever of course, but gods, how he wished it could.


	4. Four

**Four**

i

The prisoner was a Breton, dressed in filthy tattered rags, and with a sunken look about his face. His nails were overlong and yellowed, the ends black with grime, and the cell was thick with his odour of sour unwashed skin and vomit and skooma smoke. He eyed Lex warily, like an animal that had been backed into a corner.

"Do you know why you’re here?" Lex asked.

The prisoner – Alberte – gave a wheezing cough. "I killed them." His voice was flat, emotionless, as if he was repeating something from memory. He lifted his hands and stared at them. "I ripped them apart. I mean it… it wasn’t just me. But I’m the one that finished it."

Lex leaned forward, voice intent. "Why?"

"I..." A shadow of doubt crossed Alberte’s face. "I don’t know. I don’t _know_." His voice ratcheted up with distress. "Why’s it so fucking cold in here? My joints ache, I can’t breathe."

It was the after effects of the skooma, but there was no doubt it was cold in the cell. Lex rose and went to the cell door to call for a second blanket. Alberte wrapped it around his bony shoulders without a word of thanks and continued to shiver.

"Better?" Lex asked.

He gave Lex a sullen look, graying hair falling forwards over his eyes. "What about a brazier? I’m still cold."

"Start from the beginning. Then we’ll see."

"I’ve gone through all this. I told your man already. All of it, right from the beginning. There’s nothing more to tell. I don’t want to relive it again."

"I want to hear it. From the beginning, citizen. If you would."

A sigh. A weary nod. "We meet, from time to time. Not so often as we’d like, not safe these days, but with the passing of winter… and gods, it was a bad winter this year. I never thought I’d get warm again. We met to honour the Huntsman, and it was towards the end… I thought… it was strange... You know all this already."

"Keep going."

"Just… a brazier. Another blanket. Some ale."

Lex opened his eyes and stared at him and Alberte visibly flinched. "What happens after the hunt?"

"We feast. Sometimes we… some of us… we fuck."

"And this time?"

Alberte drew in a long rasping breath, then scratched at his cheek. "There was nothing different about it really, except… except this feeling, it wouldn’t go away."

"What feeling?"

"That we were the ones being hunted." Alberte shook his head. "But I was drunk, and it happens like that sometimes, and she’d been laughing with me all night–"

"Did you rape her?"

Alberte stared at him, horrified. "No!"

"You just murdered her."

Still staring, he opened his mouth like he wanted to argue, but nothing came out. Then he frowned, visibly gathering his thoughts. "Someone struck me. Across the back of my skull." He twisted, indicating a bloodied scab on the back of his head. "Then she was pushing me off and all I could hear was screaming, right in my ear, and she clawed at my face." He clenched his hands into fists. "Someone kicked me, and all I could smell was blood, I could taste it in the air, and the others were… the others were fighting. Ripping at each other. You know what that sounds like, teeth tearing at living flesh?"

Lex shook his head.

Alberte lifted his hands in a helpless shrug. "I looked around, couldn’t see much, just silhouettes, but the sounds was bad enough. Like one of them lantern shows, shadows playing out on the walls." His hands flexed as if to illustrate his words. They cast no shadow, but if they had it would have been mangled, monstrous. "And then one of them was coming at me. Fenric, it was. I knew because he was still wearing the hide of the stag. The knife was still lying there, and he grabbed my ankle and jerked me backwards, but he didn’t have no weapon, see, only his hands, and I had the fleshing knife and I was hacking upwards, felt it hit bone, but he was still trying to..." He tugged the blanket aside, and fumbled at his shirt. There were recent welts on his chest. They looked like claw marks. " _See_? And he was snarling at me. Like an animal. Flecking my face with blood and spittle. He’d gone mad. They all had. I killed him and suddenly it was like I had it too, that madness, and the woman…"

He broke off, wiping his nose with the back of his hand.

"I know what it was," he continued in a low hollow voice. "It was the Wild Hunt. Prince Hircine’s Wild Hunt. And He was there. Watching."

"Lord Hircine?"

Alberte sniffed, wiped his nose again, and nodded with an almost hungry eagerness. "I _saw_ him. Standing right at the edge of the circle of light. He called us to the hunt." His eyes gleamed now, a wild manic light. "He called us."

"How did you recognise him?" Lex asked, and Alberte faltered.

"What?"

"Well, did He take the form of a stag? Did He have antlers? I’m afraid I’ve never had much experience with Daedric matters." On this last he had to fight to keep the contempt and disgust from his voice. "How did you know it was Lord Hircine?"

The Breton was clearly perplexed by the question. "Who else could it have been?"

"So you didn’t see Him clearly?"

"No. I told you, he was standing at the edge of the light. But it had to be Him. Why else would anyone stand and watch us… rip each other apart? What sort of monster would do that?"

ii

"See?" Godrik jerked his head towards the locked cell. The Breton had been calling out for a brazier for the past quarter hour, but had finally fallen into a sullen silence after a sharp word from one of the guards. "Mad as a sack of mudcrabs."

Lex sighed, studying the reports. "It certainly seems that way. What of this other man he mentioned..."

Godrik raised his eyebrows. "Other man? You don’t mean mean _Prince Hircine_?"

"Yes. Has there been any sign of him? Or her, I suppose, since our only witness never saw their face."

"My guess is there never was any other man, sir. Or woman. Or Daedric Lord. He’s a madman, Captain. That or he was out of his skull on skooma. If it was a Daedric Lord he saw, I’d reckon it was Sheogorath. But it wasn’t and he didn’t. He’s seeing things. Or he’s lying, to make himself look like less of a monster."

"You may well be right," Lex murmured, thinking, _Or there was someone else there_. "Have you ever heard of anything like this happening before?"

"Heretics ripping each other apart?" Godrik said. He held up his hands when Lex frowned up at him. "Daedra-worshippers then. Fuck me, sir, what’re we supposed to call ‘em if they ain’t heretics?"

"His Lordship was very clear."

"Yeah, he always did have his funny little ways." Godrik shrugged. "As for the daedra-worshippers… Well, you hear about it, don’t you?"

"But have you known it to happen? They’re just people."

"So were the Mythic Dawn. So _are_ the Brotherhood. And begging your pardon, sir, but you wasn’t there when we cleared out that mess in the lighthouse cellar. Made what happened up on the cliffs look like my old mam’s larder. And it reeked. I’ll never forget _that_ charnel house so long as I live. People can do some godsforsaken things when they put their mind to it. Especially if they’re heretics and don’t walk in the light of the Nine like you and me does, sir."

The door opened. Footsteps echoed on the stone. One of the servants, self-important and clutching a perfumed handkerchief to his nose with a delicate shudder. "I have a message for Captain Lex," he announced. "The count requests his presence at his earliest convenience. Earlier, ideally."

Lex sighed inwardly. It seemed his all-too-brief period of grace was now over. Gods help him.

iii

Count Umbranox was not to be found in the castle but in one of Anvil’s two bathhouse, the more expensive one that wasn’t quite so obviously a front for a brothel. It was shabby in comparison to even the more meagre bathhouses in the Imperial City, where the pools were tiled with mother-of-pearl and hidden pipes funnelled music into rooms draped with shimmering silks. The austere Gold Coast did not share the Heartland taste for opulence and luxury. Here the facilities were limited to a series of salt-water pools regularly refreshed by the changing tides, a steam room with accompanying plunge pool, and several plainly tiled chambers where attendants oiled and scraped and plucked bodies clean and smooth.

Feeling over-warm and uncomfortably out of place in his armour, Lex was shown through into a chamber where the count stretched out on a slab, the air filled with the lingering shiver of recently worked Restoration magic. It made Lex think of Millona, of his fingers spread against her skin. And then he saw the count’s body and could see nothing else.

The man was covered in scars. Some old and silvery, others much more recent. Lex froze in the doorway, his gaze fixed on one particular scar, a hand’s breadth long, just above the count’s hip bone and to the left of the spine. Another inch inwards and it would have paralysed him. If he’d been lucky.

 _Godsblood_ , Lex thought, _how is the bastard not dead?_

Umbranox rose off the slab, every movement slow and painful, and Lex couldn’t help but see, in the moment before Umbranox wrapped a towel around his thickened waist, that the scar on his back had its twin on his belly. Something had pierced him right through, but somehow left him alive. It made no sense. Even the most powerful Master of Restoration would have struggled to snatch a man back from an injury that must have pierced the belly or bowels.

Umbranox tugged a silk gown on over the towel, looking old and tired and broken. "I’m sorry to do this here," he said quietly. "I’ve been in a great deal of pain lately. And I’m an old man, or at least I feel like one these days. I’m allowed some indulgences. Lex, could I prevail upon you to pour us both a glass of brandy."

Lex shook himself. "Of course, My Lord." He moved to the table where a bottle of brandy stood, uncapped it and poured out a finger of brandy into each of the waiting glasses. The count glanced askance at the skimpy serving, but accepted the glass without comment.

"I believe," the count said slowly as he took a seat, "I am indebted to you, Captain. You saved Millona’s life."

"It was only my duty, My Lord."

"And yet." Umbranox bared his teeth. It was not exactly a smile. Lex wondered if the cultist would ever have seen justice had he struck closer to County Anvil, or if he might have vanished quickly and quietly, and never been heard of again. "And _you_ didn’t want to go."

"She would still have been in good hands."

Umbranox stared down at the surface of his brandy. "She came so close," he said. "I’d always thought of the two of us, it would be me who died first. I couldn’t bear the alternative. I couldn’t bear it." He was already drunk, Lex realised. Umbranox stirred, glancing sharply up as if he’d half-forgotten Lex was there. "I hadn’t realised how proficient you were at Restoration magic, Captain."

"I’m nowhere near proficient."

"No?" Umbranox pointed the glass at him. "The cunt cut to the bone. To the _bone_. And yet the healer tells me the wound will barely scar. That’s fine work. Slow work. It took time, that. Not to mention loving attention." And Umbranox’s eyes were unreadable now, dark and glittering, his hand tight around the stem of the brandy glass. Lex thought of the scar, just one of many relics of whatever life it was that Umbranox had led scrawled on his skin. Lex had a few scars of his own, but not many, and most were relics of his boyhood.

"Little and often," Lex heard himself say. "It’s Legion-training, My Lord. The aim is to use as little magic as possible to patch the worst of the wounds until you can find a true healer." Because the worst thing you can do on a battlefield, or anywhere else, is leave yourself drained of magicka, exhausted and helpless, especially if you’re not a trained mage with no chance of a quick recovery.

"Little and often," Umbranox repeated. "Well, I’m very grateful for your quick thinking, Captain. I never had any doubt you would protect Millona to the best of your abilities, but I never realised quite how talented you were with your hands."

Lex stared at the count, not quite trusting himself to speak.

The count sipped his brandy. "And I hear your murderer was caught in your absence."

"It… seems that way."

Umbranox’s eyes narrowed. "Is there any doubt in the matter?"

"The man’s plainly mad. He admits to killing his fellows."

"But you think he’s lying?"

At least this seemed like safer ground. Lex shook his head. "No, My Lord, not at all. It’s..." He hesitated. Umbranox frowned, waiting. "You weren’t here when I came to Anvil," Lex continued. "You were… away, so you of course you couldn’t know that I came here unwillingly. It is my belief that I was manipulated into it."

"I never did trust Millona’s steward."

"Not by the steward, My Lord. In fact..." Lex paused for effect, "I believe it was the Gray Fox himself who sent me here, in order to thwart my quest to bring him to justice."

"The Gray Fox! But in that case, it seems I owe him my gratitude, because without you by Millona’s side, the gods know what might have happened." The count settled back against his chair and tilted his glass, smiling. "Perhaps we ought to toast him."

Lex snorted. "I’ll be damned before I do such a thing."

"Fine, then I’ll toast you, instead. Your health, Captain. But forgive me, I’m not quite sure what the Gray Fox has to do with these murders. You can’t think he’s involved."

Lex shook his head. "He’s no murderer that I know of. Only a thief, a criminal..."

"A heretic?"

"Almost certainly. But I’m using him only as an example. It feels as though another party is at work here, manipulating from behind the scenes, much as the Gray Fox manipulated me. A group of heretics apparently slaughter each other apparently in the frenzy of the Wild Hunt. But what if that wasn’t what happened? What if there was someone else there who caused this to happen."

"How?"

"There are ways of manipulating men’s minds."

"You mean a mage?" Umbranox considered this for a moment. "There were, what, six people there? It’d have to be a damned powerful mage."

"Perhaps not. They were already drunk, half in a frenzy of bloodlust already… It wouldn’t have taken much to turn that lust to slaughter. Just one little push. It might not even have had to affect them all. The Breton in jail, I don’t think it even touched him. He just lost his mind."

"If you’re right, Lex..." Umbranox grimaced. "Damned fucking Illusion mages. They’re worse than bloody necromancers. A man’s body is one thing, but a man’s mind should remain his own. It’s a monstrous thing to do. No mercy, Lex, if you catch this bastard. Give an inch to an Illusion mage, and they’ll have you cowering on the floor like a whipped dog." He swallowed back the last of the brandy, and started, wincing, to his feet. "Now, if there was nothing else, I believe I’ll soak for a while. The healers suggest the salt water will do my poor aching joints some good..."

Lex hesitated. "There is another matter, My Lord. A private matter..." He faltered as Umbranox’s gaze swung back towards him, and his mouth went suddenly dry. "Once this business is done, I intend to resign my commission and leave Anvil."

There was a moment of deathly silence.

"I beg your pardon?" Umbranox said into that silence.

Lex fumbled with the words, his earlier fears that the count knew exactly what had transpired between him and Millona returning. "Some... family business in the Imperial City that cannot wait." He trailed off. Shut his eyes, which was a mistake since it meant all he could picture was Millona’s face, lit from below by the molten golden light of his magicka. "I cannot continue in Anvil, My Lord. You said you were grateful to me. Then indulge me in this. Please do not ask me for details. I’m not at liberty to share them, only know that I am in a difficult position, and I cannot–"

" _No_."

Lex ran his tongue cautiously around his dry mouth. "No, you will not indulge me, or no, you will not accept my resignation of my commission."

"No to both questions. Absolutely not. And frankly I’m astonished you would think to ask such a question after my beloved wife had her throat cut."

"You don’t understand–"

"Oh, I understand perfectly well. Better than you, I think. And I’m afraid on this matter the Gray Fox and I are in complete agreement." The count gave a hollow humourless laugh. "Honestly," he said, "you’d be astonished at how rarely that happens. You belong here, Lex. I think so. Millona clearly thinks so. And I believe you do too, in the heart you display so openly on your sleeve. The answer is no." The count lifted the brandy glass to his lips. "You really are slow to take a hint, aren’t you?"

"I’m sorry?"

"There is no reason for you to resign your commission, Lex. I’m no fool. I have an idea why you might feel it necessary."

"My Lord–"

"There’s no need." And then, again, he repeated himself, slower, weaker, less certain: "There’s no need..."

Lex could not have said where the sudden wave of fury that rose up in him came from. He rose to his feet, jaw clenched, and stalked towards the door. He stopped in the doorway, feeling the count’s gaze on his back, and then he turned on his heel abruptly, swinging back. "How could you do it?" he demanded. "You broke her heart. How could you desert her like that?"

"You say that as if I had a choice."

"Didn’t you? You could have sent word, at least. Told her that you were safe. Or..."

"Or better yet, dead?"

Lex’s mouth had gone dry. He didn’t answer.

Umbranox studied him for a long few moments before he spoke, and when he did speak, the conversation seemed to have taken a sharp diversion. "You’re a student of history, aren’t you, Lex?"

"What does that have to do with–"

"Of the Simulacrum Wars, for instance. Tell me, how many years was it exactly that Jagar Tharn kept our late Emperor imprisoned in the Deadlands?"

"Are you implying you were in _Oblivion_?"

"If I could have sent her word I would have. Believe me when I say I tried." A crack in the man’s voice now, and his expression darkened. "And you’re right, I did break her heart, and no matter how hard I try to fix it, it never seems to be quite enough. So I can hardly blame her, can I, if she chooses every now and then to seek a little _solace._ "

Lex stared at him. The humidity in the bathhouse seemed suddenly stifling. "Solace?" he repeated numbly, and stepped back quickly as the count rose to his feet. Scarred and broken, Umbranox might have been, paunchy and graying and gone to seed, but he could still move quick enough when he wanted to. A sense of danger prickled down Lex’s spine. Umbranox’s eyes were on him, no longer weary, but glittering with contempt.

"You did a fine job on her throat, you know," he said. "Far better than I could ever have."

"My Lord..."

"I have no magic. Not a single scrap. I never have. If it had been me there, Lex, she would have died. The assassin would have opened up her throat and there would have been an end to it. I’d never have been able to heal her." The count stared at him a moment or two longer, expression strange, then turned his back. "I’m going to swim now. We’ll talk more another time. Goodbye."

"It’s hardly–"

" _Goodbye,_ Lex."

He clenched his jaw, inclined his head in a stiff little bow. "My Lord."

iv

Lex barely saw Millona over the next few days, since she remained ensconced with her husband in the private quarters of the castle, which was, as Lex knew full well, only right and proper. He just wished it didn’t hurt so damned much. When he did glimpse her from time to time, usually holding court and enduring an endless stream of supplicants, she’d send a sad sweet smile his way. The count, meanwhile, was brusque with faux-cheer, impatient and irritable, changeable as the wind.

Lex wondered what had passed between them in their private rooms. Had Umbranox told her Lex had asked to resign his commission, and what might Millona have said to that in return? Was she angry that Lex had led something slip? If Umbranox had suspected, the request might have been as good as a signed confession.

Uncomfortable with his own guilt and shame and inward-turned fury, he spent as much time out of the castle as he could get away with, patrolling the city and the docks and meeting Marcus occasionally for lunch.

On Loredas a swarm of dead jellyfish washed up on the shore, providing an endless source of entertainment for the children of Anvil, who spent hours dancing about on the beach, prodding the quivering piles of whitish jelly with sticks and tossing them at each other. Another effect of the gates, Lex wondered, or a normal state of affairs for Anvil at this time of year? No one seemed all that bothered by it, although some of the older fishermen, the ones with skin like leather, sucked their teeth and claimed it presaged a disastrous fishing season to come. Then again they seemed to say about everything that could conceivably be taken as an omen, but Lex couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen.

He rode out to revisit what was left of the shrine. Time and the weather and scavenging animals had wiped any trace of it from the land. A pair of ravens preened in the tree where the dead stag had hung.

There was something about ravens, wasn’t there? Some connection at the back of his mind that refused to come together, the frustrating itch of a forgotten word on the tip of his tongue.

Well, whatever it was it wasn’t going to come to him like this. If important, no doubt it’d come back to him in time.

He returned to Anvil. As he approached the city gates, he saw the guard hurrying out to meet him, and he knew at once that there was something wrong.

v

Lex knelt beside the corpse that lay stretched out on the jetty, sailors looking from the sides of ships. It was one of the fishing boats that had found her. She’d come up tangled in their nets, body pallid and bloated. Crabs had eaten half of her face away, but there was enough of her left that Lex could recognise her, although he still didn’t know her name. The little thief, scarcely more than a child, who’d survived the Oblivion Crisis only for someone to stove in her skull.

And the suspicions Lex had been harbouring for a while, which had been circling each other like hungry wolves, finally came together.


	5. Five

**Five**

****

i

In one of the quieter chambers at the back of the Count’s Arms, Lex knelt before a locked chest, pick in hand. The last of the tumblers snapped into place, and he stopped, holding his breath, his hands resting lightly on the iron bands of the chest.

 _Lock it again_ , he thought. _Lock it and walk away. It’s not too late,_

It ached, that longing, the needle-sharp desire to look the other way.

There’d be nothing there, of course, but the very act of opening the chest to check would change everything anyway. There’d be nothing inside but clothes and personal belongings, and what right did he have, Watch Captain or not, to go rifling about in another man’s belongings? He’d sworn to do his duty, but there were other bonds. Older bonds. To the gods, to family, to friendship. And damn it, there’d be nothing there.

He heaved the chest open.

Just clothes, freshly laundered, and scented with lavender sachets and the reek of camphor. He exhaled in relief, reached down to rifle through the contents of the chest, certain now that his suspicions would prove unfounded, and damn him, but there’d be an apology owing.

But beneath the first few layers, he felt something solid. The hilt of a dagger, perhaps? Even before he pulled the clothes out of the way, he knew it wouldn’t be a dagger.

A cylinder of ornately embellished brass, about a foot long. A scroll case.

"Gods, no," he murmured, pulling the it from the chest. "Damn it. _No_." He flipped the end open, and of course it was empty, as he had known it would be. The scroll it once held had long since crumbled into flakes of ash, its spell expended.

From behind him came the clunk of wood on wood. He looked up, grip tightening around the scroll case.

Marcus watched him from the doorway, his expression sad and grave. Almost sorrowful. One hand clutched his walking stick. In the other he held an unfurled scroll.

"Would it help if I said ‘I can explain everything?’" Marcus asked. Up until that moment, Lex had been hoping he was wrong. Now he knew for certain he wasn’t.

"No, it wouldn’t." He stood up, still gripping the empty scroll case. " _Why_?"

"Did _they_ need a reason? The Mythic Dawn. Other than… Godsblood, what even was their reason? I confess I don’t pay much attention to lunatics."

"The people at the shrine–"

"’Shrine?’" Marcus’s face contorted, white with ugly fury. "You call it a ‘ _shrine_ ’ as if it were something holy?"

"They worshipped Hircine, not Mehrunes Dagon."

"Their god of slaughter. Of needless butchery. As if there’s a difference." Lex’s hand was moving towards his sword. Marcus jerked up the scroll. "Don’t, Lex. I don’t want to hurt you."

"We both know it’s too late for that," Lex said quietly. "I don’t want to hurt you either."

Marcus gave him a pleading look. "It doesn’t have to happen like this," he said, his voice wheedling. "All I ever did was give them what they wanted. Their bloody Wild Hunt." He gave a choked up laugh. "And after all that, it barely even worked. The scroll fizzled out. Only about two of them were affected by the Frenzy, the rest of them just got sucked in. They got their Wild Hunt though." His voice hardened. "I hope Oblivion turns out to be everything they were hoping for."

"And the girl? She wasn’t one of them. Even if..." Lex took a slow cautious step closer. "...Even if you’re right about the others, she wasn’t one of them."

"Is that what she told you? I’m sure this might come as a surprise to you, Lex, but there’s a chance the brat was lying. You always were too trusting." He gave a flat, miserable smile. "In any case, I couldn’t know. Not for certain. What she knew, what she’d seen. It was quick. I made it quick." He swiped the back of his hand holding the cane across his cheeks. "The daedra have caused nothing but misery and death and bloodshed throughout history. Look at the Dunmer. Or the _Ayleids_ , for fuck’s sake. Everything they did to our ancestors. The gods only know why daedra-worship wasn’t outlawed centuries ago–"

"Morrowind..."

"Fuck Morrowind." He pointed a shaking finger at Lex. "The Dunmer are nothing but a bunch of sly, manipulative, slave-mongering, murdering bastards. Despite everything the Empire’s done for them, they’d fuck us over in a heartbeat, and _why_? Because of the daedra. If you’d seen what I’d seen, the Deadlands… If you knew..."

"We won, Marcus."

Marcus shook his head. "No, we didn’t. We _didn’t._ Do you truly, in your heart of hearts, think Dagon gives a damn about invading Mundus? Look around, you fool, look at what’s happening. The Empire’s spiralling into chaos. He got what he wanted, Lex. He _won._ We’re the ones that lost!"

His voice was trembling, breaking up, and Lex had finally had enough.

"Enough of this. It’s done, Marcus. It’s over. I’m putting you under arrest." He drew his sword. "Don’t make this worse for yourself."

Marcus gave him a look of sorrow. "You said it, cousin, it’s too late for that."

As Lex raised his sword, Marcus threw himself backwards, almost screaming the invocation in his haste to get it out. Lex jolted as the magic hit him, a paralysis spell of some kind, and his joints locked up. His forward momentum took him off balance, and he hit the floor hard, bands of steel clamped so tight around his chest he could barely breathe. The scroll case clattered to the ground.

Marcus threw his cane aside and dropped to his knees, hauling Lex over onto his back. Dagger in hand, he gripped Lex’s chin, and twisted his head around. "Did you tell anyone you were coming here?"

" _Yes_." His lips were stiff, his tongue fat and swollen. He strained every muscle, fighting against the paralysis that had him in its grip.

Marcus patted his cheek. "You’re lying. You didn’t tell anyone, because you weren’t sure. You wanted to be sure. Listen to me, though. _Listen_ ." He began to talk, the words spilling out of him in wild, desperate hope. "You know what I’m doing is right. I might have gone about it the wrong way. I regret the girl, I do, but I didn’t have any choice. You hate heretics as much as I do, I _know_ you do. Just… it doesn’t have to be this way."

"Go… to... _hell_."

Marcus sagged. "Ah, godsdamn," he muttered, pushing his fingers into his hair. "What a mess. What a bloody mess." He stirred, glancing down towards Lex’s foot, which was beginning to twitch. Without looking, Marcus gripped Lex’s hair, and jerked his head back, baring his throat. Only then did he force himself to look, his gaze meeting Lex’s then darting away as if he couldn’t bring himself to face what he was about to do. The hand gripping the dagger shook as he brought the blade to Lex’s throat.

"Wait," Lex said. He had a little more movement in his arm, although it had the weak bonelessly flailing sensation of a limb that had been slept on. His fingers nudged against the scroll scase. "Marcus, _wait_ –"

"You said it yourself. It’s too late."

The cold kiss of metal against his throat. A brief slash of pain, but Marcus’s hand was trembling and it seemed he couldn’t yet bring himself to do it. He grimaced, flexing his grip around the hilt of the dagger as he readied himself.

Lex brought the scroll case down, gravity and the weight of the brass lending more strength to the impact than Lex’s own muscles. It slammed into Marcus’s head with a meaty thunk. Not the most powerful blow, but enough to knock him off-balance.

There was a brief searing flash of burning pain in Lex’s throat, and the impact tore the scroll case from his grip, but he was already recovering and drove the flat of his palm upwards into Marcus’s nose. He twisted around, grabbing for his sword. Marcus scrambled after him, snatching at his hair, and Lex drove his head backwards, smashing the back of his skull into Marcus’s face.

" _Bastard._ "

As Marcus fell back clutching his nose, Lex snatched up his sword, and spun around, drove the hilt down into his friend’s skull, knocking him to the floor. Then he was on him, breathing hard, and pinning him down.

"You… are under… arrest."

"It doesn’t have to be this way," Marcus begged.

Lex bellowed for someone to call the guard, although from the sounds of it, they were already on their way. He could hear the troop of boots coming up the stairs.

"Yes," he said, wincing at the shallow cut in his neck, little more than a scratch, but it burned. "It damned well does."

****

ii

Lex looked exhausted, battered in a way Millona had never seen him, not even at the height of the crisis. He was sitting at his desk, the surface scattered with crumpled pieces of paper, and he raised his gaze to meet hers as she let herself into his room. It was sparsely decorated, with few concessions to life and personality other than a shrine to Stendarr beneath the window. It was a disconcerting feeling seeing him wearing civilian clothes, and colourful Nibenean ones at that, a loose shirt of pale blue brushed silk, and emerald green moleskin breeches.

"My Lady..."

"Sit, Lex, please, you must be exhausted."

He didn’t sit. Instead, he gestured to the paper on the desk as if at a loss. "I’ve been trying to compose a letter to his mother. I confess I have no idea what to write."

"Were you very close?" she asked, softly. A dark shadow crossed his face, and he nodded.

"I’ve known him since we were boys. There was a time when we were as close as brothers."

"I’m so sorry, Lex. I have no idea what the Deadlands were like, but from what I have heard…"

He gave a rough jerky nod of his head, turning away from her. There was a tightness to his voice that suggested he wasn’t far from tears. "Something he saw there perhaps. Enough to drive a man close to madness. Certainly enough to make him loathe the daedra. Not that it’s an excuse for what he did."

She approached him and placed a hand on his back. He went still at her touch. She could feel his muscles tensing beneath the fabric of his shirt. "Whatever his crimes, it doesn’t change what he did for the province," she told him quietly. "I’m sure that will be taken into account, and if he is found to have lost his mind… Well, if he has lost his mind he cannot be held accountable for what he’s done. I should think it very unlikely that he’ll hang."

He inclined his head, cast a glance at her that seemed almost shy. "Thank you, My Lady." His gaze dropped to her neck, and he brushed his fingers to his own throat. "It seems we match," he said, his voice hoarse.

"I think I would have preferred jewellery," she said, archly. Then before she knew what she was doing, she touched his throat lightly, channelling what little magic she had into his skin. He caught her wrist, and he seemed not to know whether he wanted to pull her away or keep her close. His breath came fast and ragged, his eyes fluttering closed as his skin knit back together.

Her magic stuttered out. For a moment she gasped, feeling as if she was in free fall, and of course he was there to catch her. His body was warm and strong and solid, and his arms wrapped around her back. Although she half-expected him to turn his face away as he had all those nights on their journey to the Imperial City, this time he kissed her back, not tentative or cautious, but hard and hungry.

He cupped her cheeks, sucking her lower lip lightly between his, and she pressed so close that she could be in no doubt of his desire for her. He groaned, deep in his throat, then broke away.

"Godsdamn," he muttered, holding her at bay with his hands on her upper arms.

"Are you in pain?"

He shook his head.

"Do you want me to go?" she asked.

He gave a sharp little exhalation. " _Gods, no_."

She knotted her hand in his shirt and waited. He kept his gaze on her, brushed his thumb against her throat, his touch feather-light, following the barely visible tracery of her scar. At the very edges of her senses, she could feel the slightest shiver of magic, and she swallowed back a soft moan of pleasure.

The back of her legs bumped against the bed, and she sank down. She pressed her hand against the outline of his erection through his breeches, and his hands dropped to her hair, not quite tugging her towards him, not quite pushing her away either. His cock twitched, responding to her touch, and then he took her shoulders and pushed her back onto the bed. He dropped to his knees between her legs. Removing first one silken slipper, then the next, he traced the arch of her foot, and tugged up her skirt with his other hand, inch by agonising inch. She buried her fingers in his hair, felt him kiss his way up her inner thigh.

A shadow fell across the bed.

She flinched, for a moment certain it would be the Fox looming over them.

Only Corvus, his eyes filled with something between desire and heartache, between love and sorrow. Come to check on Lex just as she had? Or had he suspected he might find her here?

Lex looked up, realising that she’d gone still. "What’s wrong?" he asked, and then, " _Oh_. Um..." He sounded so like a guilty schoolboy caught in mischief she might have laughed.

Corvus gave her a faint sad smile, and turned to go. She was struck by a sudden stark terror that if he left the room, she’d never see him again.

She called his name as he started to pull the door open. He stopped with his back to them, his head bent. Lex stared at her, his expression unreadable. "Please don’t go," she whispered.

Slowly, moving as if through treacle, Corvus closed the door. She heard the latch snap into place, the click of the key as he locked it to ensure no further interruptions, then he turned towards them. Lex watched him warily, with the look of a man uncertain if a situation was about to turn violent.

"Please," Corvus said, his voice pleasant and friendly, as he took a seat in the shadows at the edge of the room. "Don’t stop on my account."

Lex didn’t move. It took Millona murmuring his name, first softly, then with a little more insistence, to draw his attention away from her husband and back to her. She’d thought him nervous, but there was something wilder and darker in his expression, strange for a man so dedicated to honour and order and the law. His fingers dug into the flesh of her thighs as he met her gaze for a moment or two, then dropped his head.

Across the room, Corvus gave a quiet little sigh.

Lex gently pressed apart her legs, his thumbs caressing her inner thighs. In the moment before Lex brought his mouth to her sex, he hesitated, glancing into the shadows. She gasped his name as he dropped his head and closed his mouth over her as if she were a chalice and he wished to drink from her. His hands pushed her thighs apart still further, baring her to him, and the aching need grew more urgent, more intense. The candlelight from the lantern played over his hair, catching on the reddish tint as his eyes flicked up, meeting her gaze as he explored with his tongue.

Millona’s breathing was ragged, and she gave a choked cry as he ran the flat of his tongue up over the front of her sex. She rolled her hips up towards him as he repeated the movement. He was not nearly so practised or skilled as she was used to, and still it felt like drowning in pleasure. When he swirled the pointed tip of his tongue over the little bead in a clumsy butterfly flicker, it left her gasping. He closed his lips around it with the gentlest suction, and his fingers dabbled at her entrance. He groaned to find her wet and slick and ready.

Millona’s thighs tightened around his head as he sucked again and as he did so his fingers thrust into her. They caught a spot inside her, filling her with a deep aching pleasure that made her grind her hips down with a cry, demanding more, seeking a deeper penetration.

In the gloom, something stirred. A figure, wreathed in shadows.

She’d half-forgotten anyone else was there, and the next cry Lex coaxed from her, with his fingers grinding at the inner walls of her sex and his flickering tongue, was tainted by fear.

Because it was _him_. She couldn’t see his face, but she knew that if the figure seated in the shadows who watched with such avidity leant forward she would see the light glimmering on the daedric runes of that monstrous cowl.

Sensing something was wrong, Lex stopped and lifted his head, but she couldn’t look at him, couldn’t tear her eyes away from the strange.

Someone said her name. Corvus, looking concerned.

"Oh thank the gods," she said, pressing her hand over her eyes. "I thought..." She shook her head, giving a shaky laugh. “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.”

He studied her dubiously. "Are you sure you want me to stay?"

"Yes," she whispered, and held out her hand. He was still for a moment, then rose to his feet. He squeezed her fingers tenderly, and sank onto the bed at her head. Lex looked thoroughly unconvinced by this turn of events but said nothing. She twisted back to press her cheek against Corvus’s cock, feeling the heat of it through the linen. His hand stroked her cheek, and he dropped his head to kiss her, already tugging the ties of her dress loose and opening up the bodice.

And then both men were gazing at her as Corvus cupped her breasts, his thumbs circling her nipples and drawing them out into stiff little points. Lex’s fingers were still buried inside her. With head cradled in Corvus’s lap, she could smell the familiar musky scent of him, and pressed the back of her head harder against his erection. He groaned and squeezed her breasts, setting her blood aflame.

"Well?" he said to Lex, voice low and dark. "Get on with it, man."

Ever loyal, Lex obeyed. With his lips and tongue, he licked and suckled, while Corvus teased at her breasts, his erection pinned beneath her. It was the familiar scent of him, the urgent reminder of how fiercely he desired her, that drove her closer to the brink, almost as much as his fingers pinching lightly at her nipples and Lex’s tongue at her sex. Lex thrust his fingers deeper inside her, making her cry out, and Corvus growled as she arched her back, pushing her breasts up towards him.

The pleasure built relentlessly. She writhed on the bed, pressed her hips up towards Lex’s face, demanding _more._ Her fingers twined in his hair, pulling him down and not gently, while Corvus tilted her head up and kissed her hungrily, swallowing up her soft little moans. The fingers inside her worked, first twisting in rough circles, then thrusting deeper, and all the time hitting that deep place of aching heat. The wave of pleasure built, until she could do nothing but drop back and ride it, clawing at the bedclothes, her cries at the moment of release muffled by Corvus’s kiss. She soared for an instant out of her body, every muscle spasming and her thighs clamped tight around Lex’s head.

Her heart hammered as she came back down. Lex’s mouth had ceased its movements, but his fingers still moved inside her, more gently now as she recovered, her sex clutching at them. Both men were breathing hard, aroused. Corvus stroked her hair tenderly, brushing it back from her forehead, then he leant across her. At the movement, Lex went still, apparently reminded of the line that had been crossed, and he eyed the other man warily.

Corvus gently touched Lex’s wrist, the hand still half-buried inside her. "May I?" he asked.

Lex stared wordlessly, giving no answer, but Corvus gently pulled the other man’s fingers out of her and brought them up to his mouth. Both men seemed to forget her, their eyes fixed on each other as Corvus drew those fingers between his lips and swallowed down the taste of her from another man’s hands. Her hand found Corvus’s back, sliding up beneath his shirt as his tongue slipped between Lex’s knuckles.

A look of communication passed between the two men, and then Lex rose and began to strip off his clothes, while Corvus turned to her with a kiss, the taste of her on his lips. He kissed her deeply, slowly, his hands sliding up over her bared arms and raising goosebumps on her skin, his shirt rubbing against her naked breasts. There’s more to come, that kiss promised, and Millona kissed him back, eyes closed in bliss, alert to the sound of Lex undressing.

Corvus broke the kiss, and slipped behind her, pushing her hair aside so he could kiss her throat. His hands slid beneath her breasts, cupping them, displaying them. She opened her eyes and found Lex’s gaze fixed intently on her as he neatly folded his shirt and draped it over the back of a chair, only for it to slither off, puddling on the floor. His brows knitted in irritation, and his expression made her laugh, the sound startling even her.

Corvus buried his face in her throat. He was grinning, she could feel it, then he brought his mouth up to her ear, and his voice was thick with arousal. "What do you want to do?" he asked, and Millona answered.

" _Everything_."

****

iii

To Lex, looking back later, that night passed in a kind of fevered madness. Millona sat astride his lap and he took her with a slow rocking movement, while the count pressed close behind her, kissing her neck and reaching beneath to caress them both where Lex’s shaft entered her. She reached back to clasp her hand around her husband’s cock, but the position was awkward, and her attention somewhat distracted. In the end, it was Lex who brought the count to a frantic orgasm, hot seed spilling over Lex’s fingers and smearing against her back, while Millona gasped her own pleasure out into his neck.

And later, while Millona half-dozed, Umbranox bent his head and took Lex in his mouth, bringing him from a semi-flaccid exhausted state to aching desperation. At the crucial moment the bastard stopped, and slid upwards for an almost brutal kiss, his unshaven jaw scratching against Lex’s mouth.

Then Umbranox twisted into position behind him, moving with confidence and certainty as if he knew exactly what he was doing. With their limbs entangled, he ground himself between Lex’s thighs and reached around to grasp his cock, twisting his fist around its head with every stroke. As Lex began to lose control he looked around and saw Millona watching them, her cheek pillowed on her hand.

Afterwards, he rose from the bed to wipe himself down. He also took the chance to refold his shirt and replace it neatly atop the dresser, and to gulp down a drink of water, and when he finally looked back at the bed he saw the count and his wife entwined. They were kissing, slow and gentle, the violence of the storm apparently having passed, and Lex, standing in the shadows at the edge of the room, felt like an interloper, and never mind that it was his own bloody room and his own bloody bed. They seemed almost to have forgotten that he was ever there.

The count broke the kiss and cupped her cheeks, gazing at her with a look of adoration that made Lex’s heart ache. It was the same tender, loving expression he’d worn in their wedding portrait as a much younger man, but now she was returning that same look, her gaze for her husband and for him alone.

Quietly, silently, Lex dressed and slipped away.

****

iv

He went to the gardens, to the very same verandah where Umbranox had told him he ceded to his wife in all things. The coming dawn had painted the horizon a vivid red, putting him uncomfortably in mind of how the Oblivion gate had turned the sky the colour of blood, but the breeze was warm and gentle, and the distant sound of the sea peaceful. Replete and exhausted as he was, he might have fallen asleep there and then if he hadn’t suspected that Umbranox wasn’t quite done with him yet. Sure enough, the count came to find him, his movements easy as if for once he was free of pain. Lex, who was still aching a little from the fight with Marcus, envied him.

"Millona’s returned to her chamber," the count said without preamble, setting a bottle of brandy on the table. "We won’t intrude on your hospitality any longer. Of course, you’re always welcome to intrude on ours." There was an ironic twist to his mouth as he said this.

Lex glanced up, stared hard at him a long few moments. "You don’t really mean that, do you?"

The count lifted a shoulder in a one-sided shrug, pouring them each a glass of brandy. "If it’s what Millona wants..."

"That’s just it," Lex said quietly. "I’m not entirely certain it is what she wants."

"What do you mean?"

Lex hesitated, searching for the words. "Something about the way she was with you, earlier… How she seemed almost to have forgotten you were there… It reminds me a little of the stories my father used to tell me about the Dragonbreak. Multiple and conflicting memories layered over each other. I’ve been feeling it a little myself, certain details I can’t seem to remember, but I suspect it’s much worse for her Ladyship. For some reason it seems to be centred around her." He glanced at the count, who looked politely blank. "You really haven’t felt it, My Lord?"

"I’m sure I would have noticed a Dragonbreak. Or is the point that you’re _not_ meant to notice?"

Lex shook his head, pressed his fingers against his forehead. "It happened just before your return, I think," he said, "or… or shortly after? Or perhaps..."

The count sighed, sounding weary. "Lex..."

Lex dropped his hand, scowling, and slapped it against the table. "Regardless, I should never have taken advantage of her."

"I doubt she gave you much choice. Millona can be remarkably single-minded when she has her mind set on something. If anyone has been taken advantage of here, Lex, it may very well be you." Lex’s scowl deepened, and the count regarded him. "Would it help to blame things on me? Perhaps I’ve had it in mind to seduce my handsome young Watch Captain for a while. I wouldn’t put it past me, frankly. Or would you prefer anger? I could certainly challenge you to a duel if you think that might help." He grinned. "Although I should warn you that I strongly suspect I’d win. I’m a dirty fighter."

Lex opened his mouth to retort, then thought about the efficient, unflashy way Umbranox handled a sword, and his many, _many_ scars, and thought better of it. "May I ask you a question, My Lord?"

Umbranox gestured for him to continue.

"Where did you go? Were you really in Oblivion?"

"Something very like it certainly. A prison of my own making, and one it took me a very, very long time to escape. May I ask you a question in turn, Captain? Where did you believe I was?"

"Honestly? If you’d asked me six months ago, I’d have said you probably had a mistress."

"I’m almost disappointed. I would have hoped you might have credited me with a little more imagination than that. I take it you don’t believe it now?"

Lex shook his head. "If I’m certain of anything, it’s that you truly love your wife."

"I do. She’s all I ever wanted, right from the very first moment I saw her." The count brought his hand down over his face, gave a bark of a laugh. "But I don’t need to tell you that, do I? Since you’re in love with her too."

"It doesn’t matter how I feel about her," Lex said. "She doesn’t feel the same way about me."

"She might have, you know. If I hadn’t come back. If she’d had the chance to..." The count hesitated, waved a hand vaguely. "...to mourn. To come to terms with losing me. A devastating blow for any woman to bear. Very nearly unbearable, I expect. Hard to believe these days, perhaps, but I can assure you I was much better looking back then. Still there’s a slender chance she would have got over me eventually."

"There’s another reason why I don’t believe you had a mistress," Lex said. "I’m not sure there’s another woman on Nirn willing to put up with you."

Umbranox laughed. "I wouldn’t advise laying good money on that particular wager, Captain. Still, you have a point. The gods know I don’t deserve Millona." His smile faded and he continued, more seriously. "I did her a very great wrong, Lex. Not deliberately, and I’d take it back in a heartbeat if I could, and not just because I spent ten years of my life in hell. All I ever wanted was to make my wife happy. And I don’t. Not then and not now."

"She loves you."

"Ah." The count pointed at him. "But she relies on you. Which of those is worth more in the long run?"

"Love. Obviously."

"Damn it. I’d forgotten you were a romantic." The count shook his head. "I broke her heart. Perhaps I broke it so thoroughly it can’t be mended. And yes, I came back, but if that wasn’t enough… if my being here means her heart gets broken again and again and again…."

Lex was staring at him. "You’re thinking of leaving. Deserting her. _Again_."

"There’s a chance it’s for the best."

"Horseshit. You claim you didn’t have a choice. Perhaps that’s true, but if you leave again, you will have made a choice and the worst possible one." Lex made a sound of disgust. "And here I was thinking you were an honourable man."

Umbranox squinted at him. "Good gods, man," he said, his voice hoarse, "where on Nirn did you get that idea from?"

"Very well, then let me put it like this." Lex leaned forward, lowering his voice to a growl. "Leave her again, My Lord, and I will hunt you down. No matter where you’re hiding. I’ll follow you into Oblivion itself and drag you back here by your balls if that’s what I have to do."

The speech didn’t seem to have quite the impact he was expecting, although Umbranox’s eyes were grave. "You know, I almost believe you could do exactly that."

"Oh course I could. With all due respect, My Lord, you’re no Gray Fox."

The count made a faint strangled sound in the back of his throat and looked away quickly. Gods, was he crying?

"Her heart is healing," Lex said, discomfited. The count seemed to make a concerted effort to control himself and turned back, his expression carefully composed. "Slowly, perhaps, but it is healing. I’m certain of it. So slowly only an outsider could see the change in her."

"You’re not an outsider, Lex. My wife cares a great deal for you. For that matter, so do I, my friend."

Lex clamped down quickly on his thoughts before earlier events had the chance to flash through his mind. Better perhaps, not to let his mind go wandering down one of those little alleys. "But she loves you," he said. "And this… what happened tonight… Not that it wasn’t pleasant..." He dropped his gaze to his hands and cleared his throat. "’Solace’ you called it. I doubt I’ll ever be more than a bandage for Millona’s broken heart. She’ll never look at me the way she looks at you–"

"And what way would that be?"

"Like you’re the only world she’ll ever need."

"Gods, you really are a romantic." The count studied the dregs of the brandy in his glass. "I really did bugger things up, didn’t I? For everyone. You mentioned resigning your commission. Is that still what you want?"

Lex hesitated. "I’d rather stay. Unless you feel my remaining in Anvil is untenable. I can see that it might be awkward."

The count raised an eyebrow with the ghost of a grin, and for a moment he looked suddenly younger and much more mischievous. "I’ve led a long and interesting life, Lex. On the scale of awkward situations I’ve experienced, this barely even signifies. I’m sure I’ll cope." He ran his hand down over his face. "Gods, this _year._ This madness that seems to have swept through us all, I wonder if we’ll ever see its like again. By the Nine, I hope not."

"Marcus said something, before he tried to kill me. About how Mehrunes Dagon’s aim was never truly about invading Mundus, but merely to cause chaos..." Lex hesitated, staring out towards the sea. The count was watching him in the corner of his eye. "And if he was right about that..."

"If you’re going to ascribe sense and meaning to the motivations of the daedra, Lex, I suspect you’ll only ever be disappointed. Better, in my experience, not to think too hard on such matters."

"But if he was right, it means we lost the war, doesn’t it? How long can Chancellor Ocato keep this ship on course without an emperor?"

"Forever, I hope. I doubt it, though. Someone’ll come rising up eventually. Probably some Colovian warlord or other." The count bared his teeth. "Perhaps I’ll raise my own army. It shouldn’t take too much effort to get the navy sewn up. Maybe I’ll claim the Ruby Throne for myself. Gods know what we’re in for if we let a Nibenean sneak in there first. One of the Tharns for instance. _Again_."

"Gods help us all," Lex said with feeling. "I’m not sure which option is worse."

"But thinking more on the matter…" The count propped his boot on the balustrade, lacing his fingers behind the back of his head. "Nah. Not sure I’ll bother. I rather fancy a quiet life these days, and I doubt being emperor would prove the barrel of laughs it’s cracked up to be."

They both sat in silence for a few minutes, enjoying the cool pleasant breeze. Lex allowed himself to hope that perhaps it was a sign of their world returning to normal. Gods, he hoped so.

The count sat forward, rolling his shoulders. "I’d better go. It’s late, and my wife will be waiting for one of us at least."

"One final question, My Lord?"

"If you must."

" _Are_ you a heretic? Do you worship the daedra?"

The count let out an exhalation. "I don’t worship anything, Lex, saving perhaps my wife. I don’t see much point. The Aedra never did a thing for me, and as for the daedra..."

"Yes?"

The count glanced at him. He was smiling, but his eyes were grim. "Better not to attract their attention. Nothing good ever comes from that, believe me."

"You speak from experience?"

"I’m afraid I do."

Lex’s mouth had gone dry. "Sanguine."

The count tilted the brandy bottle with a brief flash of a dangerous smile. Then he shrugged. "Amongst others, and only briefly. All I ever really wanted was a quiet peaceful boring life, one that’s free of shadows. Gods willing, things will settle down and we’ll get that now."

Lex reached out and took up his untouched glass of brandy. "I’ll drink to that, My Lord. To a quiet life, free of shadows."

They clinked glasses. "A quiet life, free of shadows," the count repeated. He sighed. "Well, you never know. We can always hope."


End file.
